Cultural Appropriation: An Analysis of Costumes

Cultural appropriation is on the runway, it's in food trends, luxury fashion and hair styles done in photoshoots. We have heard it before, but do we truly understand the implications it has? Cultural appropriation is harmful, problematic, and it represents a general ignorance to the connections history of dress carries with white supremacy, colonialism and power hierarchies. These acts of cultural appropriation, oppression, racial stereotyping, or sexual fetishization rely on the harmful stereotypes about Black, Indigenous and People of Colour that originate from historical power dynamics. The dominant, Eurocentric culture steals experiences and elements from a group of people or culture that is experiencing ongoing systemic oppression. When we are culture appropriating we are removing culture from its context, history and knowledge perpetuating harmful interpretations, stereotypes and systemic oppression of cultural groups and individuals.