Camilla Franks under fire for Mad Manor fashion line and Union Jack party

Fashion designer Camilla Franks is under fire after she and some of Australia’s biggest influencers held a party that some claim was offensive.

Fashion designer Camilla Franks has found herself in hot water after she used the Union Jack in her new line of clothing, with detractors accusing her of “glamorising colonialism”.

Franks came under fire after she invited some of Australia’s top influencers to a party on the Gold Coast on Monday.

Wearing a Union Jack dress herself, Franks posed for photos with influencers Tammy Hembrow, Ruby Tuesday Matthews, Tegan Phillipa and Nikki Westcott.

Hembrow’s partner, triathlete Matt Poole, was also in attendance, as well as makeup artist Erica Coffey.

The party, to launch Franks’ Mad Manor line, included Union Jack bunting, a throne decorated in red, blue and black flowers and various other UK-inspired decorations.

Camilla Franks with makeup artist Erica Coffey.

Records of the party have since been wiped from everyone’s social media accounts, after the group was accused of celebrating Australia’s colonial history.

The party was also held just two days after National Apology Day, a day the nation commemorates former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s formal apology to Australia’s Indigenous population, particularly those involved in the Stolen Generation.

Screenshots from the party, obtained by gossip site So Dramatic, began to circulate on social media earlier this week, leading to everyone at the Mad Manor launch to wipe their pages.

One screenshot showed a now-deleted post from influencers Lucy Kate Jackson and Nikki Westcott, posing with Union Jack decorations and captioning the picture “back to our roots”.

The posts from So Dramatic triggered panic from the influencers at the party with many of them wiping any evidence they were there.

Commenters on the shared screenshots lashed those who attended, with some claiming the party was “unsurprising”.

“What the actual f**k. Although are we surprised?” one said.

“There’s a lot of cultural borrowing with this brand it’s just beyond tone deaf. How can they be inspired by African tribal and Native influences while holding onto a vision that represents British imperialism? Make it make sense,” another added.

Photos from the party.

Other commenters called out the attending influencers for promoting Black Lives Matter but then going to the Gold Coast party.

Former Bachelor contestant and Indigenous woman Brooke Blurton asked, “Is this a joke?”

“On the other side, they have posed boasting about the BLM marches that took place in Brisbane which was all just performative and to look cool/have good Instagram content,” another person wrote.

“Basically treating social and human issues as some sort of trend rather than using their platform to be a part of said change.”

Franks launched the Mad Manor collection earlier this year with TikTok influencer duo The Inspired Unemployed.

She also posed for photos in the collection with her daughter Luna.

Camilla Franks with The Inspired Unemployed, Jack Steele and Matt Ford.

Camilla Franks and daughter Luna in the new fashion campaign.

The Mad Manor collection is described as clothes where “social worlds collide”, combining “ethereal dames, posh aristocrats, counterculture icons”.

“Each dressed with particular aplomb, this season we explore all the eccentric characters so intrinsic to the English narrative,” the Camilla website said.