Cultural Appropriation & Maori design: Lessons from London Fashion Week

We all seek inspiration from around us, but when does this become a problem? And where do we draw the line? And is it okay to make use of public domain designs?

In the world of fashion there is said to be a thin line between rip off and inspiration, and there remains an interesting debate about whether fashion designers should be able to exploit and profit from the use of traditional cultural designs? For emerging fashion designers that are looking for inspiration for their designs, lessons from London fashion week, highlight that care needs to be taken, an issue which arose after Turkish designer Gul Agis's well-received collection at London Fashion Week, was accused of 'misappropriating’' traditional Maori designs.

Gul Agis’s collection ‘Tribal attitude,’ is said to have been inspired by Turkey's rich heritage; by the Gezi Park protests that took place in Istanbul earlier this year and by "the tribal attitudes in expressing anger within".

While some of the pieces from the Spring/Summer '14 collection of label Lug Von Siga did take clear inspiration from the plush textiles of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, the predominant style in the textile design was clearly Maori.

The issue in this case, is the lack of attribution to the tribe.  There was some outrage concerning the language that was used by fashion media to describe the garment: ‘lavish, luxury, decadent’ with no reference to the tribe. Among them, the Style Confessional blog said that “it was refreshing to see the cultural influences of the Turkish designer’s hometown through the rich prints and fabric manipulation.” The only person to make even a vague connection between the pieces and Maori design was said to be the show’s hair stylist, Efi Davies from Toni&Guy, who spoke to Fashion Scout’s beauty blogger Madeleine Ayers. "The inspiration basically comes from looking at the collection; there is a lot of tribal inspiration, a bit of Mari [sic].”

Mead, an academic & senior lecturer on Maori and indigenous cultural and intellectual property issues, commenting on Gul Agis’s collection, stated that, “for many fashion designers the appropriation without apparent understanding is troubling.”

Legal issues

But what are the legal issues for designers that are marrying culture with fashion. Whether opportunistic or unethical, or both, the fashion industry has a historical and an ongoing practice of taking designs from other fashion companies, and indigenous peoples and cultures. Many personalities have demonstrated a growing fascination with Māori culture. Celebrities such as Rihanna, Robbie Williams and boxer Mike Tyson have exhibited Māori-style tattoos, and both 'Thierry Mugler and Jean Paul Gaultier both used Moko to promote their clothing lines, on the catwalk and in advertisements.

Putting aside what some cultural enthusiasts would label as cultural imperialism. The unauthorised use raises a series of questions. When is borrowing from a traditional culture legitimate? Can use of designs with sacred and cultural significance, used outside of its traditional context cause offence? And is trademark protection available for cultural designs?

The designer, Gul Agis's Facebook comments, in response to the accusations, suggest she had no awareness that the use of the Maori designs would cause offence: "The last four seasons I always used Turkish culture as a reference...while searching I found Maori [imagery] and I loved everything: from woodcarvings to the masks, and for me it was amazing to know another culture. I then developed the prints and embroideries to give it a contemporary look."

Peter Shand writing on the subject of Maori cultural appropriation and practices in the fashion industry in ‘Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk: Cultural Appropriation, Intellectual Property Rights, and Fashion,’ suggests, that some would argue that the cultural appropriation and dislocation of the source form from its initial cultural context “is equivalent to colonial occupation of indigenous art and design.” Yet history shows that it is possible for fashion aesthetics to be brought together with ethics. In 1999, fashion company Moontide, made use of Maori design for their swimwear range. What is interesting here, however, is the politics of that use ‘the owner of the business, Tony Hart, and the firm’s designers developed the swimwear line with a Maori entrepreneur, standing in for the community, from predominantly rural area of New Zealand, negotiated the use of the Māori design. According to Hart, two concerns governed the design element’s use: commercial viability and cultural respect, underscoring the importance of an ethical approach when dealing with the use of a cultural design.

The Goss-IPgirl has written about the commercial use of cultural property, fashion ethics and the Maasai tribe, published on the Guardian sustainable business website here. Regarding the Maasai tribe’s, recent move to trademark their name and take back ownership over their cultural assets. The Goss-IPgirl suspects that there will be a growing trend of indigenous tribes using IP to claim back the rights to their creative output, culture and designs. But for many in the business of fashion, there is a lack of understanding concerning the problems, issues, and risks in relation to the appropriation of cultural designs. As was the case for Gul Agis, the message for many, as Professor Johanna Blakley has recently put forward, in an article as to whether it should be illegal for Western fashion designers to appropriate traditional cultural designs? Is that “just because you can appropriate designs from other cultures doesn’t always mean it’s a good idea. Especially in the age of social media, fashion brands and retailers [ought to think] twice about the cultural sensitivity of their appropriations [the risk of the ridicule] a PR firestorm online.”