Customers: Lands' End Sent Us 'Pornographic' Mag

Not everyone was pleased with free copy of 'GQ' featuring Emily Ratajkowski
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 14, 2014 11:54 AM CDT
Updated Aug 17, 2014 7:00 PM CDT
Customers: Land's End Sent Us 'Pornographic' Mag
In this February 2014 file photo, model Emily Ratajkowski attends the "Sports Illustrated" Swimsuit 50th Anniversary Issue kickoff event in New York. She's holding the "SI" swimsuit issue.   (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Lands' End has been rewarding customers who spend $100 or more by sending them free magazines—but the promotion turned sour when the issue of GQ that most recently landed in customers' mailboxes featured a topless Emily Ratajkowski with just a lei covering her breasts, the Huffington Post reports. Dozens of complaints appeared on the Lands' End Facebook page, the New York Times reports, with outraged customers writing, among other things, that the "wholesome, family-oriented company" ended up exposing their kids "to pornography."

"How can buying something as family friendly as school uniforms lead to soft porn in the mailbox?" reads another complaint. "I ordered Christian private school children’s uniforms from your company," says a third, "and you sold my home address to a magazine company that peddles in soft porn for men???" The Lands' End CEO apologized in an email for the "suggestive cover," explaining that the company included GQ as an option so as not to "exclude our male customers," and told customers their free subscriptions would be switched to Condé Nast Traveler instead. Some were just as unhappy with the apology, though, with one woman writing on Facebook, "They meant it to be a gift to their male customers. That is absolutely disgusting." Click to see the offending GQ cover. (Or read about the time a teacher sent her 5th-grade students home ... with actual porn.)

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