Cultural Appropriation: An Analysis of Costumes
Written by: Isabelle Sain, Communications Designer @ Threading Change
Editor: Sarah O’Rourke, Communications Manager @ Threading Change
[5-minute read]
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 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.
Culture appropriation is the way for a dominant culture to erase and diminish people in order to maintain dominance. It is critical to understand the inception of domination and privilege throughout history and be cognizant of the different forms of cultural appropriation in order to dismantle the systems of oppression it roots from.
Wearing cultural garments not a part of your identity and naming it a costume is perpetuating the oppressive systems that have harmed and dominated people. Not acknowledging, learning, and critically looking at your own privilege is complicity with racism, colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy. How can we change this?
Cultural appropriation comes in many forms and doesn’t just happen during this time of year (Halloween). Around this time, people have the opportunity to be someone they are not and they use this opportunity to appropriate culture, but culture appropriation is scary all year round!
Fashion organizations, celebrities and brands have internalized culture appropriation, most of the time ignored.
In recent years, social media accounts, such as @dietprada, have been using social media to hold the fashion industry accountable for their hypocrisies and racist, oppressive practices seen in the industry. Diet Prada’s critical analysis reveals the aspects of fashion that are deeply woven with eurocentricity and racism in order to exploit and control cultural aspects of groups of people for their own interests.
The Fashion and Race Database has curated a bookshelf with a list of resources that provide an introduction to cultural appropriation without removing the root causes of the practice. This reading list, by Kim Jenkins, is an opportunity to address the power and privilege between culture and people. Jenkins suggests being critical with the industry and the history of dress such as questioning: Who and where did this come from? What is its history or significance? Will my borrowing of this object or style cause harm? How has it been displaced, displayed or viewed in the past?
This Halloween season, take a time to reflect on your own costumes and others costumes. Be critical and politely let people know when they are inappropriate and harmful. Call out major Halloween costume companies who continue to make costumes which reflect culture, tradition and ritual.
Let's remember a group of people who are disenfranchised, marginalized and oppressed can’t appropriate from a culture who has the power and privilege to marginalize and degrade other cultures. Cultural appropriation through Costumes and wardrobe are forms of purposeful misrepresentation done by dominant society and they only perpetuate their marginalization, disenfranchisement and ongoing systemic oppression.
About the Author:
Isabelle is an artist whose work is an ongoing sensory experience that explores the relationships between body and space. Her work is grounded in establishing connections and events that define shared experiences to understand human interaction within the physical, political, social, and spiritual environment. Isabelle obtained her BFA in Textiles and Fashion at NSCAD University. Isabelle’s work has been exhibited in Toronto, Halifax, and Copenhagen. She has conducted a number of research projects investigating the future of fashion with KEA University, and has collaborated with several brands including Samsøe & Samsøe, and the Green Cannabis Co. In her art practice and experiences, she has created textile based design processes and solutions that establish connections to reinterpret textile production into a more environmentally and socially conscious industry. She is grounded by the preserving and passing of tradition while focusing her research on designs and systems, intersectional environmentalism, and climate justice.
References
Lee Kong, Stacy. “Why cultural appropriation on Halloween isn’t okay.” Local Love, 17 october, 2019, www.locallove.ca/issues/why-cultural-appropriation-on-halloween-isnt-okay/#.YWbssEbMI0p. Accessed 8 October 2021.
Matera, Avery. “Cultural Appropriation on Halloween: How Colleges Are Responding.”Teen Vogue, 23 October 2017, www.teenvogue.com/story/cultural-appropriation-halloween-college-response. Accessed 27th October 2021.
Andrews, Jessica. “Cultural Appropriation at Halloween: My Culture Is Not a Costume.” Teen Vogue, 25 October 2017, www.teenvogue.com/story/cultural-appropriation-halloween-costume-video. Accessed 27th October 2021.
Liu, Marian. “A culture, not a costume.” Washington Post, 30 October 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/30/culture-not-costume/. Accessed 9 October 2021.
Jenkins, Kim. “A Short Introduction to Cultural Appropriation I.” Fashion and Race Database, www.fashionandrace.org/database/reading-list-short-introduction-to-cultural-appropriation-1/. Accessed 6 2021.
Slow Factory [@theslowfactory]. Photo Collage of Culture Appropriation. Instagram, October 9th, www.instagram.com/p/CUz-kGFl1l0/.
Boston, Portia. [@Portia.Boston] .Photo of Cultural Appropriation Rampant. Instagram, 6 September, https://www.instagram.com/p/CT42fBnLwiq/.
