Cultural Appropriation is Not Fashion
Image Courtesy: Strike FAU
Last month, Balenciaga released a pair of sweatpants with a shiny price tag of $1,250. However, the real price came in the form of outrage and being accused of cultural appropriation. The “Trompe-L'Oeil” sweats were designed by Balenciaga’s creative director, Demna Gvasalia, and were made to resemble sagging pants with the tops of boxers sewn into the waistband.
What were they thinking?
The controversy was sparked by a TikTok user who slammed the brand for being racist. The user, @mr200m__ exclaimed, “this feels racist,” as he turned the pants inside out, revealing the boxers sewn into the gray pants.
What Balenciaga did here was arguably nothing short of exploitation. They took streetwear, a part of Black hip hop culture, and used it as a luxury fashion statement to make a profit. This type of clothing, the “sagging” of pants, has become a double standard, usually seen as a threat to society, something people wrongfully judge and even incriminate in some cases.
Black people have been judged, criticized, and discriminated against for such streetwear, and now, it is being made into fashion and sold for $1,250. Make it make sense.
Cultural appropriation is an “inappropriate adoption of elements of one’s culture,” and Balenciaga is certainly a perfect example. People are not happy with the brand and are demanding reparations. In an interview with CNN, Marquita Gammage, a professor of Africana Studies at California State University, said that this piece is “an exploitation of Black culture with the hopes of securing major profits.” Gammage talks about the style of sagging being an expression of Black culture and used to criminalize Black men in the real world. More often than not, this causes them to be viewed as “thugs.” There have even been laws created to criminalize sagging pants, but of course, if Balenciaga slaps their name on it, it’s a piece of luxury fashion.
This isn’t the first time that luxury fashion houses have been under heat for cultural appropriation. In 2019, Gucci released a sweater dawning a roll-up turtleneck with a lip cut-out. It was not well-received, of course, and they ultimately released a public apology acknowledging the disrespect, discontinuing the sweater.
How long will it take before luxury fashion brands get the message that exploiting culture is not trendy, and it is most certainly not fashion?
Balenciaga’s chief marketing officer, Ludivine Pont, responded to the backlash in an interview with CNN, saying that in their collections, they piece together layers of clothing into one “single garment,” and these sweatpants were simply “an extension of that vision.” Not exactly the acknowledgement we were looking for…
In the present era, the fight against racism is bigger than ever, and exploiting Black culture to make a profit is shameful. For now, we’ll be here waiting impatiently for an apology. We’re ready when you are, Balenciaga.
Strike out,
Emma Saunders
Boca Raton
