Zara's "Invisible Man" jeans are the meme of the moment

Zara is in the middle of a new controversy.
The reason? No allegations of plagiarism or lack of eco-sustainability. This time, it's a pair of jeans that's getting social media hype. The item itself, ZW Premium Petite (available both in white and black for 39.95 euros), has nothing special. It is, however, quite weird the way the retailer has chosen to show them: the baggy pants, matched with a pair of loafers, are not worn by a model, but float in the air as if a ghost were wearing them.

The first to highlight the "ghostly mood" of the images was @GrrlGhost who tweeted the shots next to the caption "Lmao why have Zara decided to model jeans like this?" The tweet, which is has gotten over 200,000 likes and has been re-tweetted over 30,000 times, has a long series of comments and memes.

Ghosts getting modeling gigs is the representation we need in 2020

A user wrote, and another one made a joke:

There is some weird voodoo magic keeping them jeans standing up.

One person praised Zara's "inclusive consideration" for the "ghost clientele"; while another recalled an episode of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius titled When Pants Attack. There were also numerous jokes about John Cena and his slogan You can't see me.

One of the more viral comments suggests a resemblance to Charlie Chaplin's baggy pants and typical poses:

Times are so hard at Zara they've had to employ Charlie Chaplin's ghost to model for them.

Meanwhile, Zara has replaced ghosts on the site with real models.

This is not the first time Zara has been criticized for the way it shows the clothes on its website. Last month the spotlight was on a model wearing a back to front coat. Customers of the online shop were rather confused and some said that the photo made it impossible to do any shopping as it did not reveal the fit of the garment. 

Certainly, for the retailer, weird poses are a real trend. The web is full of images that prove it. There's the brunette crouched down like when you pee between two cars; there's the shy girl hiding inside her sweater; the vamp in black dress suffering from sciatica pain; the model stretching and the one wearing the down jacket like a backpack. Zara definitely has extremely versatile stuff...