Enough already [editorial]

It’s exhausting to keep fighting this same fight over and over. Can someone please send a memo to whoever now needs to be informed that using traditional Native headdresses as a fashion accessory is, in fact, an offensive appropriation of Native culture and spirituality?

New Zealand fashion designer Trelise Cooper prominently featured “Indian-style headdresses” in her recent “70s bohemian vibes” fashion show, explaining “It’s a fashion thing and I don’t mean any disrespect.”

This misuse of the headdress—symbolic of leadership, bravery and enormous sacrifice— falls on the heels of similar disrespectful misappropriation by singer Pharrell Williams and reality television personality Khloe Kardashian, who each wore Native headdresses in recent photo-shoots. Fashion house Chanel and Victoria’s Secret has used headdresses as part of their shows, also sparking controversy.

Perhaps that’s the point now; to just use the headdress to gain headlines and attention to sell product.

For her part, Cooper said she had seen headdresses worn “as a fun thing” during her travels in the United States and Ubiza, an island in the Mediterranean Sea known for its night-life and club scene.

“It was beautiful to be honest,” said one of Cooper’s supporters of the fashion show. “It’s a beautiful culture,” added the friend, New Zealand’s Fashion Week managing director Dame Pieter Stewart.

Really? What would this Dame know about the culture headdresses come from to offer such an opinion? Really. We’d like to know. We’d like to know what research Dame Stewart did to offer up this opinion to rationalize her friend’s complete and utter disregard of said culture? Who did she consult?

Who is she to provide authoritative approval to use the traditional headdress in such a way?

An article in the ironically named newspaper “The Dominion Post” reports that Dame Stewart “doesn’t smile with her eyes. She gives you the distinct feeling she’s gentry and you’re a nuisance, a small dog that’s yapping at her heels…” So, we guess a little flap over a few feathers won’t mean a lot to her.

Dame Stewart explains that “Designers draw their inspiration from all sorts of things and [Cooper] drew her inspiration obviously from the Indian culture.” Oh, well, then. That’s OK. Everybody settle down. It’s a compliment.

No. There is nothing flattering about misrepresenting a culture, a group of people’s beliefs, for your own purposes even if you’re inspired by it or just because you want to, even if it serves an artistic purpose (though we believe this fashion choice was more likely about commerce than art).

It’s not beautiful to corrupt the world’s view of Native culture. So stop.

Windspeaker