The other day, I did a post about the controversy surrounding a Dior skirt, that uncannily resembles a Chinese style that is centuries old. That triggered me to start thinking of the idea of cultural appropriation more generally. I was going to post this the very next thing, but I was afraid of writing the “wrong” thing. That maybe what I was about to write wouldn’t be sensitive enough to the issue, or that it would lean too far. I am posting now because you have to communicate in order to have a conversation. I may very well be wrong, but no one can correct me if they never hear me. So, here goes.
The controversy raised a lot of questions for me. I am by no means a historian or a cultural anthropologist. But my understanding of fashion is that there is a history of borrowing ideas. Thinking about pleating specifically, that is a technique that started somewhere and was taken up and passed down in multiple parts of the world. I find it sometimes hard to police a particular style or technique that is embedded in the histories of so many cultural groups. Now, this is isn’t saying that a particular instance is or is not cultural appropriation. But it does beg the question, “What does cultural appropriation mean in the fashion industry?”
Britannica defines it this way: Cultural appropriation takes place when members of a majority group adopt cultural elements of a minority group in an exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical way.
As the article continues, they add these examples of ways a majority group may culturally appropriate the culture of a minority group:
- Profiting financially or socially from elements taken from the culture
- Oversimplifying or treating the culture as a joke
- Separating the cultural element from its original meaning
- Adopting an element without the backlash minority group members experience for it
I struggle internally each time I hear that someone has been accused of cultural appropriation. One reason is that, these days especially, such words carry weight. We have to make sure that we are using them properly so as to not water down their meaning. If we lodge such accusations around casually, we weaken our arguments when real harm is being done.
These are some things I am not clear on:
Who is a majority group? (especially in the context of world power at this point)
How do power dynamics play into this all?
What counts as cultural appreciation on the individual level?
My real fear is that in taking knee jerk reactions without fully exploring things, we can start to limit cultural sharing and collective growth. Yes, there is a space where that sharing is really just robbery or disrespectful. Consider the blatant examples of the ceremonial headdresses as a fashion statement and the use of blackface, minstrel show like designs used by Gucci and Prada. However, cultures are fluid. Think of the history of pasta. Or in terms of fashion, there was this idea of “dressing Spanish,” copying the common all-black way of dressing. A we collide with people who are not like us, we take on some of their practices and incorporate them into our ways of being, shifting them to fit our likes. Sometimes it feels like critics would rather us not interact with people who are different from us at all.
As I continued to think through this, I came across this video/podcast from Business of Fashion. In it Rebecca Hui and Seno Tsuha speak to their response to cultural appropriation, a way they developed to move towards true appreciation and mutual benefit. This gave me some food for thought, maybe it will give you another way to think about it, too.
Sources and Resources
BOF Team. (April 15, 2022). An Antidote to Cultural Appropriation. The Business of Fashion. https://www.businessoffashion.com/podcasts/workplace-talent/an-antidote-to-cultural-appropriation/
Held, A. (February 7, 2019). Gucci apologizes and removes sweater following ‘blackface’ backlash. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2019/02/07/692314950/gucci-apologizes-and-removes-sweater-following-blackface-backlash
Ortega, J. (October 19, 2016). When ‘dressing Spanish’ was in style. BBVA. https://www.bbva.com/en/dressing-spanish-style/
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.) What Is Cultural Appropriation? Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/story/what-is-cultural-appropriation
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