Daniela Monasterios Tan, BAFD1A, ID NO: 8047, DE 3104 Core Studies-Extended Essay, Date of Submission: 2 March 2009

Daniela Monasterios Tan, BAFD1A, ID NO: 8047, DE 3104 Core Studies-
Extended Essay, Date of Submission: 2nd March 2009.
Daniela Monasterios Tan
Class: BAFD1A
I.D. No.: 8047
DE3104
Core-Studies – Extended Essay
Title: Ethnic Appropriation in fashion: A dialogue or an invasion?
Date: 2nd March 2009
Supervisor: Lucinda Law
Program of Study: Fashion Design

Contents
1. Abstract
2. Clothes and the generation of ‘Meaning’
2.1 Giving clothing meaning through the authority of the fashion
system
2.2 The meaning of Dress: A fabrication of culture
2.3 The dichotomy between fashion and ethnic dress
2.3.1 The cross-over: in search of frisson
2.3.1.1 Orientalism and Exoticism
3. Fashion neurosis
4. Appropriation of Ethnic dress
4.1 Modernist affinity: Disorienting Images
4.2 “Ligh-hearted” self exoticism of Shanghai Tang
5. Poetic significance and emotional resonance
5.1 The ‘Right’ to wear ethnic dress
5.1.1 Hostility towards the white body
6. Romanticism in the fashion vocabulary
6.1 Case study: The reality of Zara’s care-free gypsies
7. Clichés, familiarity and stereotypes as a hindrance to post-modernism
8. The Ethnic designer: Post-modern quotation
8.1 The ‘Big Three’ : Aesthetics beyond geographical boundaries
8.2 The sub-conscious multi-cultural designer: An interview with Jenny
Ayayo
8.3 Free-floating symbols: Post-modern
editorial
8.3 Balancing the two extremes: Manish Arora
9. Conclusion
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The Appropriation of Ethnic Dress in Fashion: a dialogue or an invasion?
Abstract
This essay contends that ethnic dress has become a commodity devoid of
meaning in western fashion and it will trace this through the way in which fashion
designers and journalists have been appropriating ethnicity in relation to
promoting it as a commodity to satisfy consumer behavior. In order to examine
this phenomenon it is necessary to establish what constitutes as ethnic dress
and what kind of meaning it holds in its original context. When discussing
meaning of clothing, references to both Malcolm Barnard (2002, 2007) and
Roland Barthes (2006) will serve as a pivot for the central argument. Using
Edward Said’s (1995) theory of orientalism the reader will understand why
ethnicity has been extensively used in fashion which will then be followed by a
study and break down on the changes that designers make to the meaning in
accordance to their design process. The essay will end with a discussion on the
need for a conscious appropriation of ethnicity in terms and how a post-modern
approach could serve to update the fashion vocabulary into the years to come.
Before we move on to consider the appropriation of ethnic dress, we first
have to consider how meaning of ethnic dress is constructed. The central
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argument of this essay is based on the way meaning of ethnic dress is altered in
fashion. With reference to Barnard (2002, 2007) and Barthes (2006), we have
two views on whether meaning can actually be attached to inert objects and if so,
how?
According to Barnard (2002, p. 73) meaning is wrongly either placed on
garments themselves or “in some external authority like the designer or the
wearer”. His argument to both views is that if meaning was existent in clothes,
there would be no room for misinterpretation. Clothing cannot be taken as a
simple language used to express the wearer’s intentions, a clear example that he
brings up is the way parents construct a different meaning from their teenage
daughter’s dress sense from the one that was intended. While the daughter may
be trying to look matured, grown-up or even cool, parents will often have a
different notion of the look portrayed. If there can be a difference between the
wearer and the spectator’s interpretations of an ensemble, then clothing itself
does not carry an inherent meaning because it requires a collective or personal
subscription to a meaning.
Similarly, if designers fixed meaning to clothes, one would have to ignore the
psychoanalytic argument that the designer might not have been completely
aware of influences from his sub-conscious. Also, the meaning of the clothing
would not change with time, it could not “vary from place to place and from
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situation to situation, and it could not differ according to its position in time”
(Barnard, 2002, p. 74). Clothes definitely change meanings with time and space;
fashion itself is a system that relies heavily on constant change which it
generates through frisson (a thrill or quiver) as Jennifer Craik (1994) explains.
What was considered fashionable at a point of time may be ridiculous now as is
the case with fads and trends which can last for a couple of months and die out
as was the case with acid-washed jeans which were so popular in the 1980s for
a brief period of time yet are more often than not have been referred to as the
epitome of bad taste outside of that time period. Fashion can give clothing
meaning albeit for a short period of time, it is based on the notion of being
fashionable and not knowing these codes of meaning can place one in the
“stigma of being unfashionable” (Barthes, 2006, p. 116). Therefore, meaning
cannot be said to be given to a garment by a designer nor by the wearer or
spectator alone.
If clothes had no meaning, then the central question to this essay would be
redundant. It is a common opinion that what we wear must mean something,
Barnard (2002) explains that the way clothes gain meaning is through the
interaction between the garments and individuals’ cultural belief systems while
Barthes (2006) adds on that it is the vesteme (or way of wearing) that gives
clothing meaning. This would be the case with ethnic dress, an assemblage that
uses the ethnic body as a vehicle (Joanne B. Eicher, 1995) to display cultural
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”transmittable and transmutable. It is shared, learned, communicated, and it is
cumulative.” (Marilyn J Horn, 1981). Culture is transmitted and communicated
from generation to generation through verbal or material means such as
traditional clothing and heirlooms. Geoffrery-Schneiter (2001, p. 36) narrates
how in places like Indonesia, Malaysia and Northern Philippines finery such as
ritual jewelry and ceremonial fabrics “represent domestic wealth as handed down
from generation to generation” clearly showing that ethnic dress and its
components are a way to pass down not only wealth but a history from a
generation to the next. Therefore, ethnic dress in a culture is a way to keep
culture alive and to remind generations of the past. It is a way to keep culture
cumulative and retains meaning by being constantly transmitted. Ethnic dress is
the “shared meaning (that) constructs one as a member of a cultural group”
(Barnard 2007) and an appropriation of it into another social group will empty it
out of this known meaning.
While ethnic dress constitutes of signifiers that are kept constant to assure
familiarity, the western fashion model is based on the idea of constant change. In
its search for this mythic constant change, western fashion finds frisson in the
unknown. Fashion then is a system that seeks constantly to renew itself, with
designers churning out collections seasonally and magazines which are
published monthly or even daily periodicals like the International Herald Tribune.
This system is symbiotic with consumerism; the consuming of garments as well
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as of information which is brought to the consumer through magazines and
various other media. Both fashion and ethnic dress constitute of garments and
body modifications that act as signifiers in a society, although there might seem
to be a dichotomy between them because of the idea of change and tradition,
there are instances in which this line is crossed and ethnic dress makes its way
into fashion as examined next.
In search for ‘frisson’ the fashion system, consisting of journalists and designers
alike, looks outside it to bring in new styles. In semiotics, the generation of a
symbol, in this case western fashion, includes a negation to define it. Therefore if
“non-fashion refers to indigenous/local Asian dress forms” (Sandra Niessen,
2003) then fashion establishes its position by looking into non-fashion for
inspiration for the fact that it is outside of this system. Although there are other
factors that could inspire a designer, this essay concerns itself with why ethnic
dress has been constantly used as a source of inspiration and how its meaning
has been changed once it is translated into fashionable clothing.
Since the beginning of western fashion at the turn of the century, designers like
Paul Poiret make constant references to ‘exotic’ cultures outside the west in their
quest to bring something new to their customers. Poiret was known for
“restrained and tasteful treatment of Oriental elements” (Nancy J. Troy, 2002, p.
136). Although this phrase could come under heavy criticism when taken in view
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with Edward Said’s Orientalism text (who in the 1970s primarily discussed the
misrepresentation of the East in the West), by taking inspiration from the middle-
east, Poiret was able to introduce loose silhouettes that went against the tight
corseting of the time and his ethnic borrowing was able to revolutionize fashion
by giving alternative silhouettes and garment types although these styles did not
gain popularity immediately. Here the exotic cultures were seen as something
unknown and when translated into garments their novelty opened up the eyes of
western fashion into alternatives that fueled fashion change along, of course,
with other factors such as a growing independence of women and a change in
the idealized female form.
Edward Said (1978, 1995) refers to orientalism as the viewing of non-western
societies as “the other” and in this process objectifying and exoticism them, even
considering them culturally backward as compared to the west. The west, with
their fear of the unknown, deals with the exotic by either ostracizing it or
containing it by making it seem less foreign. This containment is done by making
the East manageable and is often done by pre-conceived notions that turned into
cultural clichés that the West assigns to the East because it sees itself as
superior. Orientalism can thus come in as a barrier in the translation of meaning
of ethnic dress when brought into western fashion which can even affect the way
cultures view themselves when trying to market their fashion internationally.
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As with the orientalist tendency to contain the unknown, fashion neurosis
happens when “Fashion tames the new even before producing it and so
accomplishes that paradox in which the ‘new’ is both unpredictable and yet
already decreed” (Barthes 2006, p. 117). Although ‘exotic’ elements have often
been used in fashion in different seasons, all of these have to be ‘tamed’ for their
audiences through the use of a stagnant vocabulary that is familiar to the
consumers and allows them to be active participants in the system. Words like
tribal, global, ethnic and folk chic are constantly found in runway reviews, these
general terms are used loosely to make sense of information that designers
present to its audience and form a culture so to speak, whose way of generating
meaning is through the repetitive use of written word.
As Barthes (2006, p. 44) studies the link between written fashion and fashion
clothing, he is faced sometimes with broken links and in trying to decipher them
he comments that “the only way here is to look for repetitions”. By repetition not
only does written fashion allow the participants to decipher the meaning of
clothes, it also establishes its authoritative position as a system (Lisa Skov 2003,
p. 223) that excludes non-participants.
There are three levels of appropriation of indigenous art into design that
Peter Shand (2002) has termed that will be used to make sense of ethnic
borrowing in fashion; the first being ‘modernist affinity’ in which the artist, in this
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case the designer or marketer, believes or wants to believe that the original art
form is similar to what the designer’s system already knows. With reference to
Said’s definition of orientalism, this would mean that the western fashion system
deals with the unknown and exotic by translating it to its consumers into products
they already understand, therefore ‘containing’ it; making it familiar. The danger
of the unknown being dealt with ‘modernist affinity’ is that it may package
ethnicity into clichés, pre-conceived notions that keep being re affirmed by the
press, which in turn alters renders ethnic dress useless and solely a shell of it’s
original meaning.
“Modernist affinity” can be explained with John Galliano’s Autumn/ Winter
1998-1999 collection for Dior Haute Couture called A Voyage on the Diorient
Express (Caroline Evans, 2003, p. 29), which was compared to the Paris
Universal Exhibition, for they both had the effect of trying to “normalize, contain
and manage non-European cultures through the very process of creating them
as spectacle”. The setting was akin to the world fairs in the 1900s in which
representations of different cultures were put together in order to fascinate,
mostly middle-class, visitors and give them a taste of the exotic. Through
spectacle then, Galliano creates an affinity between the viewers and his
collection, observers are invited to understand what they are viewing by being
shown a form that they understand; the runway show.
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As spectators we will relate to his collection through our pre-conceived
romanticized notions based on popular culture and historical dress; feathers and
headdresses instantly mean Native American, and the setting is made to look
Moroccan along with refreshments like Turkish Delight. The clothes have a 16th
century western influence and this jumble of signals becomes disorienting. For
the fact that it is all so far-fetched we know for sure that this can only be a
fabrication of John Galliano’s imagination and cannot be held as an accurate
representation of a historical event. The fashion system gives members a
“magician’s legitimacy” (Skov, 2003, p. 220) which allows disparate elements to
form a collage of diverse styles, periods and ethnic influences and be given
credibility only because they are under fashion. The danger with modernist
affinity is that when repeated too much, these observations become cultural
clichés.
When first beginning this essay, an assumption was made that turning ethnic
symbols into clichés was emptying them out of their meaning. A grey area has
now formed by the fact that clichés are often employed by the ethnic groups
themselves and can actually become forms for the communication of globalized
cities.
The man behind Shanghai Tang, a brand “best known for its light-hearted
implementation of the self exoticizing design strategy” (Skov, 2003, p. 229),
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David Tang, is himself described as a cosmopolitan socialite unlikely to be
clinging on to ‘traditional’ costume while the world globalizes. By employing
Chinese clichés like mandarin collars, the use of satin and embroidery as well as
garments that are familiar to the west to sell Chinese-ness to both locals and
foreigners Shanghai Tang champions its Chinese-ness through garment styles
and interior decoration. Although it could be that “one motivation of self-
Orientalizing performances may be to assert that one shares the foreigners’
perspective on oneself and is hence equivalent to them in status” (Anne Marie
Leshkowish & Carla Jones, p. 294), there is a paradox in selling this Chinese
identity as Hong Kong Chinese themselves do not see an accurate
representation of their ethnicity through the use of such clichés. Skov (2003)
coins this as the “modernist strategy of making the familiar strange” which comes
directly from orientalism.
In fact, by assuming an air of authority and giving an inaccurate representation
of a culture, designers and the press alike can fall into what Shand (2002)
describes as ‘commercial exploitation’, turning ethnicity into a commodity which
is similar to colonization.
Since the essay is dealing with external factors that change the meaning
of ethnic dress, it will now focus on how colonization, trade and tourism also
affect the transmission of culture through ethnic dress. A historical example of
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how colonization can alter the meaning of ethnic dress is seen in the way
Amerindian gold and silver jewelry was melted down by conquistadors who cared
only about the value of the precious metals and not the shamanic power of the
finery (Geoffroy- Schneiter, 2001). Two terms that will be brought in here to
explain their actions would be ‘emotional resonance’ and ‘poetic significance’
(Shand, 2002).
The conquistadors do not feel connected to the finery in any emotional way as it
is not part of their culture and so they reduce it, by melting it down, to its material
form; gold and silver. Gold and silver themselves do not mean anything per se, to
the conquistadors they meant currency but to the Amerindians the gold and silver
took ‘poetic significance’ when shaped into ritual items that were believed to have
shamanic powers. The conquistadors literally melted meaning out of these items
and in turn erased Amerindian history, not bothering with the ‘poetic significance’
that these finery had. In today’s global world, a designer has to keep in mind the
‘poetic significance’, or meaning, of his ethnic appropriation and to do this he
must be aware of the ‘emotional resonance’ that the items hold in their own
societies, to do otherwise will be akin to “colonial occupation of indigenous art
and design” (Shand, 2002).
‘Emotional resonance’ can be explained back with Barnard’s (2007) argument
that a culture is based on shared meanings and the communication and
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understanding of these meanings. In ethnic dress, emotional resonance can be
cumulative with items bringing ethnic individuals memories from their ancestors
and the place in history that these items held. The meaning is something that has
been shared across time and in a globalized economy where participants in
western fashion have come to include non-western countries, this essay believes
that it is important for the emotional resonance of appropriated objects be taken
into consideration.
In comparing Nirmal Puwar’s (2002) essay on multicultural fashion with
the views found in a newspaper article by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (1999), we are
able to see how the emotional resonance of ethnic dress like the shalwar-
kameez can cause hostile feelings among South East Asian women living in
Britain towards the white body that proclaims it fashionable. Bringing Barnard’s
(2002) point back, we see how the meaning of clothing in fashion is not fixed but
it fluctuates between the cultural belief system of the spectators and the wearers.
Alibhai-Brown (1999) discusses the views of Indian women in Britain who were
indignant because celebrities glamorized their traditional clothing like the
shalwar-kameez, a garment commonly worn in Afghanistan and Pakistan and
argues that these women should be culturally proud that these celebrities are
embracing their culture, yet this view can be questioned. Nirmal Puwar (2002)
speaks from experience when she recalls the ‘Paki-Bashing’ prevalent in the
15
1970s and 1980s in Britain where school kids would “spit from the tops of double-
decker buses on the heads of any Asians passing by on the street below”
(Puwar, 2002, p. 75). It would be terrifying for a newly migrated ethnic individual
to continue wearing their traditional garment when it is precisely this garment that
marks their difference and invites racist attacks!
The shalwar-akameez is worn to express an ethnic affiliation or as a form of
Diaspora fashion, when brought into the western world to interact with a ‘foreign’
culture the shalwar-kameez has gained meaning as a signifier to express
difference and because of the racial tension in Britain during that time, causes a
negative emotional resonance for Asian women when brought back and worn on
the western white body. Earlier memories of racist attacks on their mothers or
grandmothers can stir feelings of injustice for the modern Asian body as Puwar
(2002) extensively explains in her essay and in her own words, it is not the
appropriation itself that brings about these feelings but “the power of whiteness to
play with items it had only yesterday almost literally spat at, that lies at the core
of this specific rage” (Puwar 2002, p. 75). These issues are at the crux of this
essay’s argument; ethnic appropriation can be seen as another form of
colonization in design when the emotional resonance of ethnic dress is ignored.
For a post-modern dialogue to form between fashion and ethnic dress, both must
be active participants and emotional resonance acts as the voice of ethnic dress,
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a voice that cannot be silenced or ignored because of the reaction from the
ethnic groups themselves.
A thoughtless invasion and misappropriation of ethnic dress akin to
colonization is obvious in instances when ethnic dress is the subject of
commercial exploitation, for not only is ethnic dress being ‘stolen’ but used for the
sole purpose of being sold in the mass market. Multi-national companies can fall
into this category because they generally only want to give consumers what is in
trend with no regard to social implications or origins of the appropriation. One
such company would be high-street retailer Zara which capitalizes on the fact
that fashion no longer dictates how individuals should dress by offering its
customers a wide range of looks that would change in a matter of weeks. It aims
to give its consumers what they want. In so doing they abide by what is in trend
as proclaimed by runway reports and trend forecasting websites such as WGSN.
For their Autumn-Winter 2008/2009 collection, numerous ‘gypsy’ elements could
be found; surface beading and embroidery, tassels and shearling mimicked what
was seen on the Autumn/Winter 2008 runway shows of major brands like Gucci.
Young models are nonchalantly draped against walls painted to look like gypsy
caravans that obviously belong to an amusement park. They wear identifiable
modern garments like leather jackets, leggings and t-shirts so they’re not trying to
re-enact the life of a gypsy but instead using the connotations commonly
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associated with gypsies; that of care-free nomads who assemble their clothes
without falling victims of fashion, to appeal to an audience that would like to
identify themselves as such.
However, outside of the magical world of fashion, the reality of gypsies at this
point of time was quite grim as can be noted from an article from the International
Herald Tribune (Ben Seidler and Simon Marks, 3rd October 2008) in which the
authors find fashion’s “ongoing fascination with the Gypsy style of dress
intriguing” as the Gypsy, preferably known as Roma, have been at “the center of
several large-scale persecutions in Europe” and even recently facing racial
discrimination in Italy.
The gypsy romanticized look is about freedom and “function over frivolity” as
John Galliano (Seidler & Marks, 3rd October 2008) explains. Yet outside of the
fashion system the Roma have actually been enslaved in the past, contrary to
the popular belief that they are ‘free’ people. Most of them live in sub-standard
living conditions and the way they dress is a result of their economic situation. It
is not a choice they make; it is a way of life. In this example we see how ethnicity
is globalized; first the original source has been broken down into connotational
meanings as coined by fashion journalists and designers, and then brought into
the fashion world and romanticized.
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This romanticism tends to be the product of written fashion, as mentioned
earlier with fashion neurosis where the unknown is tamed with familiarity.
Familiarity can be done by means of repetition, stereotypes and clichéd
descriptions which can hinder the production of frisson. “It is the relation to all
other objects, or signs, that generates the meaning of the postmodern object”
(Barnard, 2002, pp163) similarly a post-modern dialogue will require the
familiarity gained from clichés to be broken and re-constructed, taking into
consideration current contexts and in so doing fashion can be enriched with new
meaning and find the frisson that it constantly seeks. What this essay proposes
as the answer to ethical ethnic appropriation is a dialogue that will not silence the
past and different cultures but will be a “celebration of local traditions and a new
cross-cultural understanding” (Shand, 2002, p. 53) which he refers to as Post-
modern quotation. This relation has to be between what the object was and what
meaning it held in its culture and what it is transformed into and what place this
would have in the world now.
The fashion press sometimes unintentionally hinders this dialogue when
they try to make sense of collections. Susanna Lau (26 April, 2008), a well-
known fashion ‘blogger’ whose online fashion journal is read by hundreds around
the world, has referred to Jenny Ayayo’s shoe designs as a “precise” reflection of
her “cultural/ethnic background mix-up”. Yet in an interview with Swedish-
Kenyan designer Jenny Ayayo held through e-mail (October 5, 2008), she did not
19
agree with this quote and mentioned that she did not consciously fuse her
backgrounds together in her design process. Here we see the disparity between
what the fashion press sees as a conscious decision made by a multi-ethnic
designer to bring forth her heritage into her designs and the actual truth in which
the designer herself is not conscious of it at all. It is clear then, that fashion
vocabulary is a way of generating meaning using pre-conceived notions that may
or may not be true.
This is very similar to the way Japanese designers like Yohji Yamamoto, Issey
Miyake and Rei Kawakubo whose designs gained popularity and a place in Paris
Fashion week back in the 1980s were referred to as embodiments of Japanese
culture when in fact they did not see themselves in this way at all. The “big three”
were “not happy with the way in which the international fashion press portrayed
them” (Skov, 2003, p. 224) for all these references were demeaning and tried to
classify their work as part of their ethnic identity and not their vision. The press
brought in terms like Hiroshima-chic to describe their work and the ‘big three’
were none too thrilled. “Historical allusions indicated that what was new in Paris
was already old in Japan-in other words, that the fashion collections were a kind
of national costume. In doing so fashion writers drew on the distinction between
fashion and ethnic dress” (Skov, 2003, p. 219-220). Although already successful
in Japan, it was unfair of the media to put labels to the Japanese ‘look’ in this
way and claim that their work was merely a representation of their culture.
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Out of the three, Rei Kawakubo was the one who most explicitly distanced
herself from the national culture, not claiming to be a representative of it as the
international press often claims in a bid to understand their different aesthetic.
These Japanese designers want their work to be seen as an aesthetic formulated
not by “geographical boundaries” (Skov, 2003, p. 224) and do not want to be
involved in the exoticization of their culture but prefer to be their own entity.
Although there are definitely Japanese influences observed in the work of Rei
Kawakubo, her distancing from these associations shows an unwillingness to fall
into the power play of western fashion vocabulary. There is the element of post-
modernism in her deconstruction and reconstruction of clothing, the purposely
distressed fabric, and although she tries to distance herself from it, her work
could be a product of her surroundings in Japan although definitely not a
representation of it.
There is a twist to this for although the fashion press creates certain clichés,
consumers themselves respond and interpret them to “reflect a dialogue between
their personal goals, life history” and how they view themselves (Craig J.
Thompson & Diana L. Haytko, 1997, p. 16). Therefore although discourses in
fashion are thrown out to consumers, these known meanings are used by
consumers themselves to formulate their identity. Most consumers now belong to
a globalized economy and live a life that is perpetuated by influences from all
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over the world be it in food, literature or the arts. These known clichés in fashion
can also propel designers to build upon a post-modern dialogue which seeks to
bridge the gap between past and present and multiple cultures.
Ayayo (2008) is one such designer who could be part of this post modern
dialogue. Her work has been featured in VOGUE UK (March 2008) as well as
various online fashion websites. She believes in being aware of using ethnic
influences with sensitivity but also because she “believes in making something
new or interpret(ing) it in a new way…making it (one’s) own”. The post-modern
need to re-work what is already known and to generate a new meaning is
obvious in her design process which could perhaps also be a reflection of her
surroundings. She grew up in Sweden and has Kenyan heritage, but studied and
lived in London which to her “is and was a melting pot of ethnicity” and is where
she first experienced “true individualism”. London like most global cities is a
perfect example of post-modernism where all the different cultures have come
together in different permutations and combinations and affected music, design,
fashion and lifestyle.
Although Ayayo’s shoe designs for Spring/Summer 2008 were inspired by Ikat
the end result is not instantly recognizable to belong to a certain ‘ethnicity’, and
when styled for VOGUE UK they were set against a village in Peru in an editorial
titled “Trail Blazers” by Lucinda Chambers (2008). A closer examination into this
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editorial shot by Mario Testino (a Peruvian himself) will help to explain how this
editorial is an example of a global post-modern dialogue in which Ayayo’s shoe
designs were able to be part of a narrative far from its original inspiration.
Fig. 1
In Figure 1, the headline of the editorial reads “Trail Blazers; In the foothills of the
Andes, two intrepid travellers become birds of paradise in this season’s swirling
skirts, rainbow colours, exotic frills and feathers" . As we examine the written
word we realize that traditional fashion speak is used with words like ‘exotic’,
‘paradise’ and ‘travelers’ to get the idea across as to what the editorial would be
about. The models are referred to as ‘intrepid travellers’, as if there was
something to fear of an ‘exotic’ culture bringing us back to modernist affinity
where the unknown is dealt with words that readers would be familiar with. What
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saves this editorial from being another orientalist representation of an ‘exotic’
village could be in part that it was shot by a Peruvian Mario Testino, and what we
are given visually is actually a post-modern quotation thanks to the choice of
styling, the vesteme that the stylist is proposing, which makes sure the clothes do
not exactly mimic nor try to blend in too much but neither do they stick out like a
sore thumb as well as by the choice of settings where the models actually
connect with their surroundings visually as well as by ‘joining in’ their activities,
In Figure 1 the models interact with the local children, and in opposition to the
written word of ‘intrepid travelers’, this shows that there is nothing to fear. The
silhouette of their skirts is very similar to the dressing of local ‘cholas’ (indigenous
women) which would go back to the post-modern way of re-working known
objects. It is because the original ethnicity of the items cannot be pin pointed in
the styling that prevent Ayayo’s Ikat printed booties from seeming out of place
amidst the other outfits that defied ethnic classification and there is a coherence
and harmony in the way they are presented that creates a dialogue between
fashion and ethnic dress.
With Ayayo’s work, as with the Japanese designers back in the 1980s, we see
the desire to mix things up and not self-exoticize for commercial purposes and in
so doing creating a new meaning that can be understood in today’s context and
stand alone on their own like with the Ikat-inspired booties without looking a
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particular ‘ethnicity’ per se. We have seen the two extremes: the ‘playful’ self-
orientalism of Shanghai-Tang against the refusal by Rei Kawakubo to do the
same, and in between we have designers who balance in between wanting to
associate themselves with their culture and yet stay relevant to the global market
without having to self-orientalize as is the case with Manish Arora.
Manish Arora takes existing methods of traditional Indian craft methods
and completely transform them into garments that can be understood globally yet
still retain their Indian-ness without having to resort to clichés like making saris
for the western market . His garments are a reflection of his understanding of
what is Indian and what western fashion is, he makes use of dying textile arts in
India in his embellishments and his use of colour reflects the myriad colours of
Indian culture. Yet his motifs and prints cannot be pigeon holed as Indian
immediately nor can his silhouettes.
His earlier collections shown in India are a clear indicator of how Arora
consciously keeps context in mind for the garments shown and themes explored
are instantly recognizable as Indian. Yet he does not use his Indian-ness as a
selling point when showing in London for his collections for London Fashion
week take inspiration from Japanese street culture and the aesthetic is slightly
futuristic and does not encompass stereotypical Indian garments to appeal to
Westerners.
25
With all these in mind, is ethnic appropriation an invasion or a dialogue?
This essay intends to bring together these thoughts and to make sense of an
issue that is not only debatable but also intangible and perhaps to stir some
thoughts into the post-modern dialogue. Through the use of the definition of
ethnic dress we see that items that were once considered ethnic and outside
western fashion have been brought in by designers in their quest for bringing
something new into the existing system since the beginning of western fashion at
the turn of the 20th century. The dichotomy between fashion and dress was
crossed and although not an invasion, this was still a quotation, a one-sided
conversation, running the risk of being patronizing when it turned ethnic
borrowing into exoticized clichés.
We have also seen how fashion vocabulary has remained stagnant by employing
the same kind of terms to make sense of clothing that it does not always
understand and how fashion is given the sometimes unjust permission to
legitimize trends regardless of the ‘real’ truth about it’s origins as was the case of
the shalwar-kameez and the ‘Gypsy look’. Here the post-modern dialogue still
does not form because there is no regard to the past and the reality of what
fashion was appropriating.
26
Once again Barnard’s (2002) definition of a post-modern object is relevant to
conclude. A post-modern object gains meaning through its relation to other
signs, similarly a post-modern dialogue will form through its relation to other
‘dialogues’. The dialogues between the past and present, between geographical
boundaries, are all things to position the post-modern dialogue in today’s context
and the years to come. As Ted Polhemus says, a “tribal approach to appearance
undoubtedly dates back to the earliest days of human existence. It was tribal life-
with its co-operative effort, the accumulation of information from one generation
to the next and the stabilizing influence of cultural tradition- that gave our
ancestors a clear advantage over all other animals” (1996; p37) and so ethnic
dress has in many cases been there before fashion itself, to silence it would be
ignorant and to mimic it would be shallow and meaningless. Post-modern
quotation would be a re-interpretation of ethnicity in fashion, keeping in mind the
poetic resonance of ethnic items would ensure that in a globalized economy
designers and consumers alike are being sensitive to the different ethnicities
around them.
Through the e-mail with Ayayo (2008) and the various interviews and newspaper
articles studied for the research of this essay, it is clear to see that a large
number of designers are coming to include those from mixed heritages and non-
western cultures. What they bring in to fashion does not necessarily have to be a
representation of their origins but a dialogue that they have to construct to not
27
only stand out but be relevant globally. It is this dialogue that adds meaning to
their clothing, although this meaning is not fixed, therefore not ‘real’, as with the
case of Ayayo’s (2008) Ikat-inspired booties, their products have the ability to
stand for themselves and be free-floating symbols not attached to any ethnicity
and thus able to participate in the post-modern dialogue.
We have seen the evolution of this debate and perhaps in a surge of optimism
what can be concluded is that fashion appropriation of ethnicity is heading
towards a dialogue that will, hopefully, serve to enrich the fashion vocabulary
allowing fashion to be a form of communication for a post-modern culture that
does not want to forget what has been learn through generations of experience
from other cultures but at the same time needs to keep looking forward to
advance.
(6, 142 Words)
28
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32

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Daniela Monasterios Tan, BAFD1A, ID NO: 8047, DE 3104 Core Studies-

Extended Essay, Date of Submission: 2nd March 2009.

Daniela Monasterios Tan

I.D. No.: 8047

Core-Studies – Extended Essay

Title: Ethnic Appropriation in fashion: A dialogue or an invasion?

Date: 2nd March 2009

Supervisor: Lucinda Law

Program of Study: Fashion Design

The Appropriation of Ethnic Dress in Fashion: a dialogue or an invasion?

designers and journalists have been appropriating ethnicity in relation to

promoting it as a commodity to satisfy consumer behavior. In order to examine

this phenomenon it is necessary to establish what constitutes as ethnic dress

meaning of clothing, references to both Malcolm Barnard (2002, 2007) and

need for a conscious appropriation of ethnicity in terms and how a post-modern

Before we move on to consider the appropriation of ethnic dress, we first

have to consider how meaning of ethnic dress is constructed. The central

According to Barnard (2002, p. 73) meaning is wrongly either placed on

there would be no room for misinterpretation. Clothing cannot be taken as a

wearer and the spectator’s interpretations of an ensemble, then clothing itself

does not carry an inherent meaning because it requires a collective or personal

fashion itself is a system that relies heavily on constant change which it

generates through frisson (a thrill or quiver) as Jennifer Craik (1994) explains.

What was considered fashionable at a point of time may be ridiculous now as is

“stigma of being unfashionable” (Barthes, 2006, p. 116). Therefore, meaning

cannot be said to be given to a garment by a designer nor by the wearer or

redundant. It is a common opinion that what we wear must mean something,

”transmittable and transmutable. It is shared, learned, communicated, and it is

cumulative.” (Marilyn J Horn, 1981). Culture is transmitted and communicated

from generation to generation through verbal or material means such as

traditional clothing and heirlooms. Geoffrery-Schneiter (2001, p. 36) narrates

generation to the next. Therefore, ethnic dress in a culture is a way to keep

cumulative and retains meaning by being constantly transmitted. Ethnic dress is

the “shared meaning (that) constructs one as a member of a cultural group”

out of this known meaning.

designers churning out collections seasonally and magazines which are

This system is symbiotic with consumerism; the consuming of garments as well

as of information which is brought to the consumer through magazines and

to be a dichotomy between them because of the idea of change and tradition,

into fashion as examined next.

alike, looks outside it to bring in new styles. In semiotics, the generation of a

“non-fashion refers to indigenous/local Asian dress forms” (Sandra Niessen,

has been changed once it is translated into fashionable clothing.

“restrained and tasteful treatment of Oriental elements” (Nancy J. Troy, 2002, p.

with other factors such as a growing independence of women and a change in

the idealized female form.

Edward Said (1978, 1995) refers to orientalism as the viewing of non-western

containing it by making it seem less foreign. This containment is done by making

superior. Orientalism can thus come in as a barrier in the translation of meaning

cultures view themselves when trying to market their fashion internationally.

As with the orientalist tendency to contain the unknown, fashion neurosis

audiences through the use of a stagnant vocabulary that is familiar to the

meaning is through the repetitive use of written word.

p. 223) that excludes non-participants.

“Modernist affinity” can be explained with John Galliano’s Autumn/ Winter

representations of different cultures were put together in order to fascinate,

shown a form that they understand; the runway show.

As spectators we will relate to his collection through our pre-conceived

fabrication of John Galliano’s imagination and cannot be held as an accurate

representation of a historical event. The fashion system gives members a

“magician’s legitimacy” (Skov, 2003, p. 220) which allows disparate elements to

implementation of the self exoticizing design strategy” (Skov, 2003, p. 229),