The comments with Zara's photo were read by 500 million people
China has been divided by a photo of a Zara model posted on the Weibo platform (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter), promoting the company's new cosmetics line.
The girl who stars in the campaign is Jing Wen, a well-known top model, but in all her other photos the companies did something that Zara did not do.
The model was photographed close-up with her freckles and that was exactly what bothered her the most, as freckles are usually removed with photoshop.
Beauty models in China want female faces alabaster, all white, and definitely without freckles or olives. Thousands of Chinese have commented that this photo offends them, as it offends aesthetic standards in Asia.
Some users claimed that Zara had "ugly" Jing with an indescribable and unrepresentative portrayal of Asian women.
"After seeing this ad, I decided not to buy any products from Zara" wrote a Weibo user, "Not because I think the model is ugly, but because you do not respect the Asian view of beauty"
"I'm sorry, we Asian women do not have freckles", wrote EvelynYoung_23. "You must have tried very hard to find such a model."
Some comments were in favor of the photo, with others commenting that Zara promotes the natural appearance of a model.
A Zara spokesman responded to the allegations online in an interview with the Chinese news platform Pear Video, saying: "This is her appearance and the photos have not been digitally processed."