Influencer in Fashion Police video: Comments were scripted
Her comments on local fashion brought her the ire of netizens.
Saffron Sharpe, 19, appeared in a video that was posted on Toggle's Facebook page on Monday (June 27).
It featured local fashion influencer Sharpe giving her critiques on the "fashion disasters" of the public along Orchard Road.
The subjects of the critiques did not appear to be aware that they were being filmed.
Netizens said the remarks were too mean and offensive.
Sharpe told The New Paper that her comments were scripted.
The "fashion police" video was a promotion for Toggle's web series starring Kumar and Mark Lee, Double Trouble. It was taken down on Wednesday (June 29).
Toggle posted an apology on Facebook as did Sharpe.
Sharpe told The New Paper: "This whole thing has been a learning experience. I wasn't particularly mindful of the job. I will definitely be more mindful for any future jobs."
She added she was initially told that the video – produced bythinkBIG Communications – was about sound systems. It was only when she turned up for the shoot that the director told Sharpe that it would be a "fashion police" video instead. Some of the passers-by footage had already been shot and she was told to comment on the footage. The video was meant to be used as a pitch to Toggle.
Sharpe said that during the two to three hour shoot that took place at the end of May, if the scripted comments were not good enough, she would be pushed to "say something more critical".
"I felt quite uncomfortable criticising random people on the streets," she told TNP.
However, she was told it would not be an issue as the faces would be covered with Mark Lee's and Kumar's faces.
A spokesman for thinkBIG Communications later told TNP in a statement: “All parties involved in the production were briefed of the creative direction of the video prior to and on the set itself.
"We would not have proceeded with filming if at any point anyone was uncomfortable with it.”
Find out more and get the full story in the print edition of The New Paper (Friday, July 1)
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