racefail shoes!

[cimorene]

A very special pair of shoes for Patricia Wrede, because however offensive this portrayal is, hey - it's still less offensive than your book!



(These are "Cowboys & Indians" by Draven.)

ETA: "If you wanted to make them correct, you could erase the design on the right shoe and rename them 'Cowboys & that's it'." - naukhel. OH SNAP.

Comments

[poala]

Lol yeah at least it doesn't try to delete an entire race from history WTF

[naukhel]

If you wanted to make them correct, you could erase the design on the right shoe, and rename them "Cowboys & that's it" :D

[cimorene]

HAHAHAH BURN.

I don't know where I'm going with this

[bellyjeans]

*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

Re: I don't know where I'm going with this

[cimorene]

I agree completely: the shoes are cute (aesthetically pleasing), but the fashion industry as a whole has a long history and tradition that's still thriving of problematic and offensive cultural appropriation! This kind of talk is always welcome here, and yeah, a Danish designer borrowing the Greenland indigenes' traditional festival dress for hooker boots and minidresses was the subject of one of my recent rants.

IDK if you have to look at designer prestige for deflecting critique, though. No question that prestige helps to deflect critique in any arena, but privileged white consumers are extraordinarily blind to cultural appropriation in any venue and unlikely to problematize it because, sad to say, they're usually really, really used to it. At least, this is my assessment.

As for fashion getting a pass, I think it's partly because of the mix? I mean, there's a certain sameness through most fashion (minus high-end couture and arty catwalk fashion). For example, a muu muu or sari-draped dress that basically passes in silhouette or the way it's accessorized for a completely vanilla white-bread sundress is not going to occasion much comment; people will mentally 'parse' it as a sundress with a Hawaiian/sparkly print. But if its given its context - if the model is actually dressed in a sari that looks Indian, Indian jewelry and accessories and looks like she could be in India - that's much more likely to occasion comment. And when the equivalent has happened, such as an African "inspired" collection by (Galliano? I think?) a few years ago, it did occasion some news/fashion blogging criticism/comment.

Part of the reason that the line for (perceived) cultural appropriation of garments is fluid is that in modern Western society, there's a really wide range of accepted silhouettes, colors, and types of garments. So, I mean, if you wore modern clothes into most historical periods you'd look out of place, but many historical silhouettes could more or less fit in without looking too bizarre in SOME modern setting (obviously, weird undergarments and paddings/stuffings are the exception...). Is an Indian blouse appropriated, or is it just a blouse that happens to have been made in India with some nice embroidery? What if the Indians sent it to us to sell instead of the other way around? Is a cheongsam-styled dress appropriation or is it only appropriation if it's a cheongsam made in China?

When modern Indian fashion (specifically salwar kameez) came up in discussion in the fatosphere recently, with various fat women talking about how they were more comfortable and flattering to wear, an appropriation debate sprang up about whether it was okay for them to wear it in public, and there was a sizeable portion of people who thought not.