hey friends, if you care about cultural appropriation and the damage it causes, please check out this awesome project!
in 2017 dior copied the design of a traditional romanian coat from the county of bihor and sold it for 30,000 euro, giving no credit to the local artisans. in response, romanian fashion magazine beau monde helped the community create their own brand, bihor couture, which sells the original coat, handmade to order, for 500 euro a piece. they also sell other traditional clothing and jewelry for much more accessible prices (5-45 euro). they’ve been hugely successful so far, and currently have enough pre-orders to cover 4.5 years of work, with 100% of the profits returning to the community.
it’s surprisingly common for big name fashion designers like dior, gaultier, tom ford and altuzarra to copy traditional romanian clothing and sell it for ridiculous prices, with minimal original input, while giving nothing back to the community where these designs originated. it’s completely unfair that a big name designer can just steal so much hard work and misuse it to make huge profits.
please support bihor couture, if not by ordering one of their products, then by spreading the news around. it’s really awesome to see a small community fight back against cultural appropriation so successfully. i hope they carry on for a long time!
Im just gonna chime in with a bitter note about how countless of other POC traditions have met the same fate as Bihor’s but ultimately no one paid as much atttention or cared enough as to launch such a movement. But yeah when its a white subculture everyone raves about how vile and evil cultural appropiation is.
Instead of complaining and raving about cultural appropriation on Tumblr, Romanians at least did something. Did those other ‘POC cultures’ launch the movement themselves? Because no ‘kind-ass white guy bringing attention’ decided ‘these white people need help and I shall bring them money, help, and attention’ brought Bihor Couture. No, those people did this their own selves, because Romanians don’t sit around and complain on Tumblr like y’all Americans, we actually get out, do shit, protest, fight back. The magazine bringing attention was romanian. The campaign was Romanian. If you check the notes, a lot of people complaining about the “vile, evil cultural appropriation”, especially in comments, are Romanians.
Your issue is that Romanians, treated in all Western media as whores, sex trafficking prostitutes or the butt of all orphan jokes, actually fought back?
By the way, that ‘when its a white subculture’ - My identity and nationality is not a ‘subculture’. Being a goth is a subculture. Romanians are not ‘sub’-anything.
fabbygail
