A Way To Stop Cultural Appropriation And Make Fashion Support Traditional Crafts

Cultural appropriation is like the seasonal flu: every year it hits the streets, and everyone starts talking about it. Some populations are affected by it more than others, while some seem to be immune. Eventually, it makes everyone sick, and they drop the topic because there's no point struggling: it will be repeated the next year, and the problem doesn't seem to be that big after all. The reality is that, aside from being an unethical practice, the appropriation of ethnic clothes continues the unfair redistribution of resources in the fashion industry: big designer names get all the credit and all the money, while small communities get the hard feelings and no compensation.

Monica Boța-Moisin, a copyright lawyer, offers a solution: it is impossible to protect ethnic clothing and elements of it (like traditional embroidery, or fabrics) by copyright because living traditions are, in their essence, open-source. And many people would be happy to see their traditional motives on the runway. What she suggests is a way for brands to look beyond simple copying of ethnic clothes, work together with the communities that they come from, and share the profit fairly. There already are examples of such cooperation – one brand that she names, Indigo, pairs modern designs with traditional Indian weaving techniques. This way, the clothes they make might get more meaning – and become more ethical.