Is cultural appropriation forgivable in the name of fashion?

~When in Rome…

It’s a naturally human thing. We just do it. It isn’t offensive.

Stupid me.
I just looked at the picture in the link and ass/u/med it was the ‘theme’ was American Indian. Then, as I was writing my first response, I thought “Wait, why would an outfit in Spain choose A.I.?”

Mango chose a white-bread American celebrity/trash/model to represent a line that they say was inspired by the African savanna.
My stupidity pales in comparison.

IMO almost any of these models would have been inspiration, if their target market was global.

The times we live in demand a little cultural sensitivity, IMO. Finesse.

Not only forgivable but should be embraced. Screw cultural conventions and wear what ever you want. Nothing could be more boring than the fashions both men and women that retailers are shoving down our throat. Way overdue to break out of the norm and pole vault outside of the box with today’s clothing options.

I do not have words for how RIDICULOUS all that is. If a Chinese guy wants to wear a turban, a white blue-eyes blonde gal wants to wear FUBU, an old Jewish guy wants to sport a Kangool, a Hispanic woman wants to wear a abaya or an African American man want to wear a Chinese smoking jacket or a kilt, who should care? If you are going to manufacture kilts and only plan to sell to Scotsmen, then it may be culturally incorrect having Hispanics, and Blacks as models, etc. If one plans to make kilts and sell to anyone, then why not have them modeled by people who isn’t Scottish? Those not Scottish can see what it looks like on people of their nationality. I think it is just another ”thin-skinned” episode.

For me, it depends.

I think of some things as a “stolen valor” issue. A native headdress makes a status statement, as would the pope’s hat or the Queen’s crown or a military general’s fruit salad. I would say it’s in poor taste to wear those things as fashion.

Other cultural things that are more open to the public – a Catholic’s rosary, a Bindi dot, a hijab, or a kilt – go for it.

It doesn’t matter what I think. If the culture in question thinks it’s disrespectful, they’re kind of the experts. We should listen to them.

@Haleth – you can find some representative of any group that will agree or disagree with whatever you like.

The subculture I grew up with find women wearing pants and getting haircuts to be an “abomination”.

At some point, you have to draw the line at how much effort you’re going to put into not offending anyone.

As mentioned above, I personally draw the line at cultural honorifics.

Cultural Appropriation? Bad thing? Gimme a break.

I agree with @Cruiser, @Hypocrisy_Central, @marinelife on this one. It would be nice when these things are adapted the people doing the adapting cite the provenance out of respect for the originators, but who are the originators of any given culture? I think one would be hard pressed to find a culture and artifacts that were created in a vacuum and thus without precedence.

I think giving proper citation would make the thing more interesting, it would add another dimension: “Today, Rebecca is wearing a tiara modeled after the Pope’s very own… ”

Conversely, many social anthropologists and historians believe the fall of a culture begins with arrogance. In other words, these cultures begin to die when they no longer appropriate ideas from other cultures and civilizations. The fall of the Islamic Empire is directly attributable to when they stopped assimilating ideas from the West and thus missed the industrial revolution completely. What many of their former member states have today is a struggle to understand modern times, yet because they missed the industrial boat, the development of the middle classes and the democratic institutions that grew out of that, they are stuck in feudalism. They were left behind because they became too arrogant to appropriate and assimilate the ideas of other cultures into their own. Arrogance is a very dangerous thing as is this fear of appropriation of foreign cultures.

I see this in the US today. Many of our problems have already been solved in other countries. For example, everyone in the US seems to think we have a shitty school system. This is borne out by the world-wide Programme for International Student Assessments (PISA) administered under the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 2013 PISA statistics rank US 15 year-olds 36th in the world (out of 65) in reading skills, the maths and sciences and failed to reach the top 20 in any subject tested.

Finland, Norway, The Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand consistently rank in the top ten. Norwegian schools have the highest percentage of secondary school graduates and the highest percentages of secondary school graduates transitioning into college level studies. They also have one of the highest college graduate percentages in the world.

Why hasn’t a presidential commission of our 100 best pedagogues been formed and sent to study these countries’ school systems, find out what they are doing right and bring it home? Arrogance, perhaps?

We’re different. We are are not a homogeneous culture, we are made up of many cultures and therefore it is difficult to get everyone on the same page… There are a million excuses. They are all bullshit. Australia and New Zealand are made up of immigrants and they have a native culture just like we do. They are not lagging. I don’t hear them making excuses.

And now we have yet another excuse: We don’t want to offend anyone by appropriating their culture. Well, good luck with that. What a bunch of whiney little shits we’ve become.

^^^wow answer^^^ +5