Cimorene

*barges in*
Damn fashion and its supposedly superficial focus for making me think 'ooh, kinda cute!' when I saw those. I'm never really sure where I stand on the fashion industry's appropriation of other cultures and its own unquestioned white history of design. For example, I love belle epoque style and those of contemporary designers who are inspired by them and yet so much of the fascination that fuelled the turn-of-the-century visionaries was based on exoticising an 'Orient' that European colonial powers were systematically trying to mine for its resources. And then what extra layers of significance does it take on when in 2009, people like Galliano send (white) models down their Paris Dior runways in Poiret-inspired harem pants and sari-inspired drapery? Is everything just up for grab in the fashion world because everything ends up as inspiration somewhere along the line and nothing purports to deal in anything deeper than the surface exchange of aesthetics? And can it even be depoliticised like that? I don't know but it's weird that the fashion industry, beyond the issue of a lack of racial diversity (visibility wise, anyway), gets a pass most of the time for this. I think I remember you posting on the Danish? Or Norwegian? designer's ridiculous take on indigenous Greenland dress and I remember kind of nodding my head along with the whole post. But in lieu of these discussions on steampunk, where predominantly aesthetic subculture is getting deconstructed for it's embedded historical values, I'm wondering if the prestige of the major fashion houses and the proclaimed 'genius' of its head designers are what deflects criticism?

Also, um...hi? Sorry for just randomly bursting in and vomiting all over your page with words that go nowhere? :D