When Is Fashion Going To Stop Appropriating From Native American Culture?

In fashion, it’s a designer’s job to create a world from the ground up season after season. Sometimes that means seeking inspiration from pre-existing ones, but all too often this hunt for a new muse leads to appropriating from other cultures. This past fashion month, Dsquared2‘s twin designers Dean and Dan Caten caught flack for sending rip-offs of Native American motifs down the runway. Worse still was that the title of the collection, “DSquaw,” drew on a derogatory term for Native American women, and the equally offensive description of the runway show’s aesthetic—”the enchantment of Canadian Indian tribes” and “the confident attitude of the British aristocracy”—was posted to the fashion brand’s Facebook.

Dsquared2’s glamorization of colonialism feels particularly off-key considering the current headlines about violence against Aboriginal women and girls in Canada, not to mention fellow fashion brand Ralph Lauren’s recent apology for its own offensive depictions of Native Americans. How could Canadian-born designers possibly be so tone deaf? That was one of the first questions that came to mind for Kim TallBear, a Austin-based scholar and activist for Native American visibility who has served on the council of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. We spoke with TallBear about the history of the word “squaw” and why pop culture continues to have a problem with appropriation.

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