Lets Talk Cultural Appropriation in Fashion

Disclaimer: When writing this post there were a few things that came across my mind, one being that I am a white person and I will never be able to truly understand what it feels like to have my culture appropriated, as I am the one usually doing the appropriating, and in no way am I trying to stand up for something that is not mine to stand up for, but rather share the internal dialogue I had when I first saw the CDG show on twitter.

via: Getty Images; Ann-Christine Poujoulat

While researching for this post I came across an article titled, “Are Cornrows Cool Again?” followed by a surplus of photos where white women were wearing cornrows, and I think an article discussing wether or not a culturally significant hairstyle is on trend is possibly the pinnacle of cultural appropriation. Cultural Appropriation is most commonly understood to be when somebody adopts an aspect from a culture that is not their own. However the way cultural appropriation functions in our society is much more complex than this simple definition. As cultural appropriation most commonly highlights the double standard of the difference between what people of color and white people are societally accepted to do. Cultural Appropriation is unique in the fact that the dominate group takes aspects from a culture in which they have surpressed in the past.

Now that we have a simple understanding of what Cultural Appropriation is, lets discuss it in the context of fashion. Cultural Appropriation is everywhere in fashion and designers are constantly utilising aspects of minorities cultures in their designs. So because of this its impossible to talk about Cultural Appropriation as a whole in fashion, as there is just too much to cover. Instead Im going to be covering the most recent viral situation of Cultural Appropriation in the Comme Des Garçons menswear show with the use of cornrows on white models.

In recent years, the conversation about white models wearing dread locks and cornrows has become increasingly intense, with majority of the fashion community coming to the conclusion that stealing a suppressed cultures traditions in the name of fashion is never okay.

So, how could Comme Des Garçons possibly think that using cornrow wigs on a sea of white models be okay? Well, that is the question the entire fashion community is asking as well.

To completely understand the utter bizarreness of this choice we need to understand some of the history concerting cultural appropriation and cornrows in fashion.

I think an important place to start with this is the oh so notorious Kim Kardashian and her blatant cultural appropriation time and time again. One of the most famous occurrences of cultural appropriation and Kim Kardashian is her “Bo Derek Braids” controversy, where she posted a series of pictures on her socials wearing Fulani braids. Now the issue in this is that instead of crediting the black community for this style she credited Bo Derek, a white women who wore the braids in a 1970s film.

Julien D. hairstylist for the Comme Des Garçons show reports that he was inspired by an Egyptian price and wanted to pay homage. Now on the surface these intentions could be somewhat pure. However the execution is where the problems arise. First being the use of white models and second being the blatantly obvious lace left on the front of the wig which Kimberly Drew writes that this leads to the wigs being used as sculptural objects. This connects to the fact that using a culture for experiments or to make a statement is never okay.

Lets take a minute to entertain the fact that this was not the goal of Comme Des Garçons and rather that the theory many twitter users have brought up is true and this was a publicity stunt.

If in fact this was a publicity that makes this issue much more problematic, because Comme Des Garçons saw the issue in their actions and yet still decided to go along with them because they knew it would cause a stir.

That means that the intentions were not those of ignorance and lack of education, but rather holding malicious intent.

What can be learned from this situation is that education on important issues is crucial and exploitation of a culture is never okay.

Sources:

https://graziadaily.co.uk/celebrity/news/kim-kardashian-braids/

https://www.ebony.com/style/everything-you-need-know-about-cornrows/

https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/comme-des-garcons-apology-cornrows-cultural-appropriation/

https://stylecaster.com/beauty/are-cornrows-cool-again/

https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/cultural-appropriation-wrong/