What Defines Cultural Appropriation?
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What Defines Cultural Appropriation?

Bel Jacobs
BBC, 2022
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The fashion industry draws inspiration from many spheres, including a wide variety of cultures. But what determines the line between inspiration and exploitation? In recent years, social media has accelerated cultural appropriation, landing some brands in hot water. As Bel Jacobs reports for the BBC, the industry must compensate and acknowledge artisans in “sacrifice zones” – places where various industries exploit marginalized people for economic gain , for instance, using their designs. Several organizations, including the Fashion Open Studio, Fashion Impact Fund and the Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative, among others, seek to redress this imbalance with collaborations that benefit all contributors.

Summary

Cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation are not the same.

In 2019, a major fashion house appropriated designs from the Oma people of Laos without obtaining permission or acknowledging the designs’ origins. In response to such incidents, the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre devised a campaign highlighting the disparity between inspiration and exploitation. 

While cultural exchange is important for overcoming barriers and promoting understanding, its power dynamics often contain elements of exploitation. People from former colonized cultures, in particular, are vulnerable to this process. Exploitative outsiders neither recognize nor compensate their hard work, and appropriators erase their identities.

Social media has accelerated...

About the Author

Bel Jacobs, the coordinator of Extinction Rebellion Fashion Action, is the former style editor for Metro. A speaker and activist, she writes a blog at www.beljacobs.com.

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