Stella Jean has long been an outspoken activist around Black lives in fashion. Recently, the Italian designer released an op-ed for WWD speaking on cultural appropriation. Read the entire letter here on WWD, but here are some of the big takeaways from the essay:
“The history of wax prints — or as Professor Tunde Akinwumi perfectly defined it, The ‘African Print’ Hoax — is one of the world’s most emblematic and incredibly unknown tales of commercial domination and colonial abuse. It dates back to the middle of the 19th century and has persisted for almost two centuries, until now.
Many fashion brands have used it, but none of these luxury giants bothered to consult with an African anthropologist or sociologist to understand its underlying tragic and paradoxical racial component. They continued believing the story as told by the winners…to the winners.
I am the first to have sinned in the area of superficiality, but once I understood the deception, I decided to not feed the giants who, in their quest to create a total monopoly, become billionaire empires in impoverished Africa.
‘African print’ is an erroneous label that was coined by its producers for the sole purpose of deceiving and misleading customers by pretending to sell authentic African designs. The deception has continued right up to current, contemporary times. What is known for certain is that Dutch wax prints started out as cheap, mass imitations and counterfeit copies of Indonesian batik, which is locally produced in Java.
Stella Jean on colonial powers
Colonial powers were in favor of the development of the so-called “African print fabric,” which is the “result of a long historical process of imitation and mimicry,” as Yinka Shonibare noticed. This unacceptable history teaches us how oftentimes behind a fabric identified as the flag of a continent, no less, there’s a commercial and cultural tale of domination and abuse that has existed for centuries. This was an illusion and a cultural imposition created by a colonial force that openly violated the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The thousands of African prints being kept in Dutch vaults should be immediately considered African cultural heritage and returned to the nations these ravenous colonizers exploited. The dispossessed people shall have the right to lawful recovery of their property, as well as the right to adequate economic compensation. Cloth transactions throughout West Africa have been monopolized for years without any design content negotiation with Africans. In other words, the product was developed and renamed “African prints” with little or no African participation.”
“We need to remember that as frivolous as fashion is, it is a cultural expression and as such it should be the result of research and study, aside from just an aesthetic observation. In today’s world, it is of crucial importance that these stories are not carried out and documented exclusively by the winners.
We’d like to think that the advertising campaigns having Black imagery as central topic, highlighting diversity and mastery on the topic of cultural appropriation, can be contrasted with an effective and concrete working collaboration. A whole continent cannot be considered only as a passive fountain of inspiration. For years, Black culture has been sampled yet rarely ever cited, without true promotion or reciprocity. The consistent and intensive exploitation without permitting the continent to reap any type of real advantage means supporting the act of neo-colonization. It is necessary to establish a new type of relationship with Black natives and cultures, so that the existing dynamic of exploitation is transformed into cooperative collaboration, which allows bilateral development and gain that is not univocal.”
What are your thoughts on the matter and what Stella Jean said? Did Stella Jean bring up a valid conversation about cultural appropriation?
