Japan's Uniqlo pulls ad after South Korean fury

Japanese retail giant Uniqlo has pulled a commercial featuring a 98-year-old US fashion figure from South Korean screens, it said Monday after it was accused of whitewashing colonial history.

South Korea and Japan are both US allies, democracies and market economies faced with an overbearing China and nuclear-armed North Korea, but their relationship is deeply strained by the legacy of Tokyo's 20th-century expansionism.

The latest example is an advert for Uniqlo fleeces showing elderly fashion celebrity Iris Apfel chatting with designer Kheris Rogers, 85 years her junior.

The last line has the white-haired Apfel, asked how she used to dress as a teenager, innocuously responding: "Oh my God. I can't remember that far back."
But Uniqlo's Korean arm subtitled its version of the ad slightly differently, reading: "I can't remember things that happened more than 80 years ago."