Katy Perry shoes removed from sale after 'blackface' design sparks outcry

'Our intention was never to inflict any pain,' Perry says in statement

(Dillard's)

A blackface scandal recently sent shockwaves through America’s political establishment – now there’s a blackface row in the world of high fashion.

Singer Katy Perry’s eponymous fashion line has pulled a pair of shoes from sale amid concerns that the shoes – which are black, and part of a line of shoes of various colours with faces on them – resemble a person wearing blackface.

“I was saddened when it was brought to my attention that it was being compared to painful images reminiscent of blackface,” Perry said in a statement released today.

“Our intention was never to inflict any pain. We have immediately removed them.”

The shoes were being removed “in order to be respectful and sensitive,” a source close to Perry had earlier told TMZ, which first reported on the scandal.

Fans and critics reacted online to express disgust that the singer’s fashion line would have the shoes up for sale in the first place.

The shoe removal comes as the governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, faces pressure to resign after a photo from his medical school year book page surfaced showing an individual in black face and another in a Ku Klux Klan uniform.

Mr Northam has provided differing explanations for the photo and has said the individual in the photo is not him, but has admitted to wearing black face as a part of a Michael Jackson Halloween costume previously.

So far, Mr Northam has refused to resign, saying that the state needs someone who can heal Virginia – and he, as a physician, is the perfect man for the job, he said. Since the photo was unearthed, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has also admitted to once wearing black face.

Mr Herring is third in line to the governorship.