Stealing the Show

It's no secret that the history of fashion is laden with cultural appropriation but in a changed world, designers are finding thoughtful new ways to spotlight work rooted in heritage and tradition.

- Christian Allaire

One night a few months ago, I was scouring my usual list of secondhand websites—The RealReal, eBay, Grailed—when I spotted it: a vintage Jean Paul Gaultier top plastered with imagery of cowboys and Native Americans. Sigh. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve seen my Indigenous culture reduced to a kind of gimmick. Growing up Ojibwe on the Nipissing First Nation reservation in northern Ontario, only rarely did I see the beauty of our people and their designs authentically reflected in the fashion world; all too often, we were reduced to caricatures instead.

But I bought that shirt, which now rests in my growing collection of fashion pieces that feature various elements of cultural appropriation. Of course, this isn’t a new concept: Appropriation—in this case, using style cues and motifs from cultures that aren’t one’s own, often without credit and in stereotypical or racist ways—has a long history in fashion. Far more than simply drawing inspiration, designers—often from white or Eurocentric backgrounds—have long mined from minority groups, adopting their underrepresented craftwork or techniques before passing them off as their own. It’s something that can be seen at least as far back as the 18th century with the chinoiserie movement when European designers became fascinated with the motifs found in traditional Chinese dress.

“Appropriation is when you turn something into a costume—like wearing a qipao with chopsticks in your hair,” says Chinese American designer Kim Shui, who incorporates qipao-style collars into her own pieces but has seen other designers plagiarize the style—as well as larger brands pigeonhole entire vast, kaleidoscopic cultures into one specific look and co-opting it. “It’s not coming from a genuine place.”