"Don't Put Me in Your Moodboard, Hire Me" - An Industry Plagued with Appropriation
“Don’t put me on your mood board, hire me” is a phrase that many emerging artists, designers, stylists, and models from all backgrounds can relate to in regard to the current state of the fashion industry. The industry at large has, especially in the last few years, gathered a terrible reputation as a “no man’s land” due to a lack of proper copyright protection laws, questionable morals from big corporations, and an absence of true consequences for trespassers.
A common denominator in all areas of fashion is a knack for co-opting minorities and our aesthetics - plastering them in editorials, runway shows, and advertising campaigns all over the world. What is most sad about this is the fact that, more often than not, the copied or imitated aesthetics are the same ones that have historically marginalized these same minorities. Additionally, the aesthetics are rarely appropriated as a tool to celebrate the culture they come from but are employed as a gimmick for cultural relevance. Industry giants constantly and shamelessly appropriate and misrepresent styles from minorities with no respect or regard to their historical background and cultural significance.
The most frustrating reality of this phenomenon is the underlying structure of the fashion industry built on the work, ideas, and designs from minorities. Members of the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, immigrants, women and marginalized people of all types have created the fashion system as we know it – that we’re all currently part of. We continue to contribute to the system, though in many cases, minorities make it only to the inspiration or mood board, and rarely to the official design team who execute our co-opted ideas. It is difficult to come to terms with the fact that the industry has failed to both protect and fairly compensate the same people that continue to enable its growth.
Moschino, Dior, Comme des Garçons, Dolce & Gabbana, and Givenchy are only a handful of the many brands that have been caught in the act co-opting minority aesthetics for simple cultural relevance. From fashion shows to advertising campaigns, these luxury brands have proven to have little to no cultural awareness or sensitivity outside of their own spectrum. The same questions always come to mind: How did no one within their chain of command catch a questionable creative decision? Did anyone say something? Was there anyone (queer, of color, etc.) in the room? What is the point of the many diversity councils these brands infamously have if the ‘diversity hires’ remain at entry level or have limited access and voice to put a halt to these embarrassingly offensive products?
For his Fall 2015 collection, Riccardo Tisci, then creative director at Givenchy, referenced Latin women as an aesthetic muse using the word “chola” in the description of her style. He called it “Chola Victorian.” As a Latin person, born and raised in a country with multi-layered race and class issues, I cannot stress enough how problematic the word chola can be, particularly when used in the wrong context and without knowledge of its implications. In my country of birth, Bolivia, ‘chola’ is used as a label for indigenous women who dress according to styles synonymous with and rarely to the official design team who execute our co-opted ideas. It is difficult to come to terms with the fact that the industry has failed to both protect and fairly compensate the same people that continue to enable its growth.
Moschino, Dior, Comme des Garçons, Dolce & Gabbana, and Givenchy are only a handful of the many brands that have been caught in the act co-opting minority aesthetics for simple cultural relevance. From fashion shows to advertising campaigns, these luxury brands have proven to have little to no cultural awareness or sensitivity outside of their own spectrum. The same questions always come to mind: How did no one within their chain of command catch a questionable creative decision? Did anyone say something? Was there anyone (queer, of color, etc.) in the room? What is the point of the many diversity councils these brands infamously have if the ‘diversity hires’ remain at entry level or have limited access and voice to put a halt to these embarrassingly offensive products?
For his Fall 2015 collection, Riccardo Tisci, then creative director at Givenchy, referenced Latin women as an aesthetic muse using the word “chola” in the description of her style. He called it “Chola Victorian.” As a Latin person, born and raised in a country with multi-layered race and class issues, I cannot stress enough how problematic the word chola can be, particularly when used in the wrong context and without knowledge of its implications. In my country of birth, Bolivia, ‘chola’ is used as a label for indigenous women who dress according to styles synonymous with and rarely to the official design team who execute our co-opted ideas. It is difficult to come to terms with the fact that the industry has failed to both protect and fairly compensate the same people that continue to enable its growth.
Moschino, Dior, Comme des Garçons, Dolce & Gabbana, and Givenchy are only a handful of the many brands that have been caught in the act co-opting minority aesthetics for simple cultural relevance. From fashion shows to advertising campaigns, these luxury brands have proven to have little to no cultural awareness or sensitivity outside of their own spectrum. The same questions always come to mind: How did no one within their chain of command catch a questionable creative decision? Did anyone say something? Was there anyone (queer, of color, etc.) in the room? What is the point of the many diversity councils these brands infamously have if the ‘diversity hires’ remain at entry level or have limited access and voice to put a halt to these embarrassingly offensive products?
For his Fall 2015 collection, Riccardo Tisci, then creative director at Givenchy, referenced Latin women as an aesthetic muse using the word “chola” in the description of her style. He called it “Chola Victorian.” As a Latin person, born and raised in a country with multi-layered race and class issues, I cannot stress enough how problematic the word chola can be, particularly when used in the wrong context and without knowledge of its implications. In my country of birth, Bolivia, ‘chola’ is used as a label for indigenous women who dress according to styles synonymous with post-colonization era tradition.
As globalization evolves, the word ‘chola’ has entered into the rhetoric of mainstream culture in many Latin American countries, including my own, where many have reclaimed the word as their own non-derogatory term. Though this may be the case sometimes, in many cases, it is still used as a derogatory insult. Tisci’s use of this word as an aesthetically descriptive adjective is extremely problematic and deeply offensive. Naive use of the word 'chola' does not allow for proper recognition or homage to the actual identities - whether it be traditional Bolivian women or young Mexican-American women in suburban cultures often associated with street gangs - that the word is intended to describe.
The main reference to the stereotypical chola aesthetic in the actual show was the hair styling using baby hairs. Models, mostly white - the only Latin model I can recount that walked was Joan Smalls – strutted the runway with baby hairs styled ornamentally over their foreheads with either gel or grease, in a true Latin woman style. It is interesting how inspirational mechanisms work, as one could argue this is a stylistic choice regardless of its cultural context. Though I argue that in the circumstances of heritage brands such as Givenchy important to make sure to tread lightly and to use inspiration responsibly by reflecting proper representation in the research and development as well as production and presentation of the end product.
Another layer to this issue is the fact that some people in the industry did not see this as problematic and mentioned that Tisci, being Italian, had always had “a thing for Latin archetypes”, as if his own ethnicity gave him access to another. It is this kind of fetishization of minority aesthetics, from both editors and critics to designers and stylists, that excludes the voices and histories of the minorities they are taken from. I do not mean to imply that this phenomenon is intentionally offensive, my argument is that this is a problem because of the message that it sends. The message that the ‘chola’ label and aesthetic is chic and on-trend when plastered over white models created by an acclaimed European designer in a luxury context, but ghetto when seen in an everyday context on Latin women.
Another interesting factor is the new editorial obsession with “soft masculinity” and “new masculinity”. This imagery is present in editorials such as American Vogue, and heavily rely on aesthetics and styling cues taken not from women, as they traditionally have, but from members of the LGBTQ+ community, particularly gay men, trans and non-binary individuals. As a queer person, it is incredibly frustrating and exhausting to see publications co-opt our aesthetics and present them as new and innovative, especially because that these are the same aesthetics that have marginalized us and our ancestors for so long.
Something similar happened with trend forecasting services and fashion news outlets that begin to focus on pointing out famous heterosexual men who engage in these trends as heroes of a new presentation of masculinity. A recent example of this is American Vogue’s dedication of an entire article to Shia LaBeouf in October 2019 on how he is “the latest man in Hollywood to rock heels,” where he was actually wearing a pair of Gucci loafers with less than an inch worth of “heel.” Another example is an American GQ article dedicated to Ansel Elgort wearing eye shadow to the Golden Globes in January 2020 titled “Ansel Elgort, Makeup King of the Golden Globes, and the Arrival of the Very Famous Beauty Boy.” While I am pleased to see straight men experimenting and feeling comfortable with exploring menswear and beauty outside of cis-straight tradition, the lack of acknowledgment to the community that normalized these aesthetic elements is an erasure which I cannot subscribe to.
Alok Vaid-Menon put this in an incredibly raw and straightforward manner while speaking at Business of Fashion’s #BoFVoices event in 2019. Alok is a gender non-conforming writer, performer, speaker, and activist that has gained recognition through their work in activism in and out of the fashion industry. Their work focuses on the experiences of trans and gender non-conforming people of color.
In this talk, Vaid-Menon narrates their experience in the industry, including a poignant anecdote regarding a photoshoot for a cover story of a publication, and highlights how people of color and minorities, specially members of the LGBTQ+ community have always been a part of fashion and have been instrumental to what fashion is today:
“It is incorrect to say that trans people like me are newly in fashion. We have always been a part of the story. As hairdressers, make-up artists, stylists we built contemporary beauty with our blood, sweat, and shoulder pads and yet, our aesthetics and labor made it into the room but never our ideas and bodies. We inspire but are never hired, we are the mood boards, but not the models, we are offered compliments, not contracts.”
- Alok Vaid-Menon, #BofVoices conference, 2019.
It has become the reality of the fashion industry that exposure determines your level of success and growth. For emerging designers and minorities, like myself, erasure and lack of exposure can not only be incredibly frustrating and infuriating but can hinder growth and allow one’s work and oneself to become nothing more than voiceless sources of inspiration for the big players. Our industry has fed and been fed by the false idea that inspiration does not come with responsibility and accountability – that anything is free to take as long as it exists.
Social media and the Internet’s call-out and cancel cultures have increased accountability on the basis of fear of shame, but not responsibility. It is time to stop expecting respect and solutions after the fact and look for answers within the communities that inspire the industry. The only way to do this is to find the same people whose aesthetic identities we continue to replicate in our mood boards and make them a part of the conversation. Stop mindlessly gathering inspiration, and start putting in the work to mindfully hire, credit, and give exposure to those who need it and deserve it.
