How to avoid exploitation when working with artisans
Done well, designers collaborating with traditional textile makers can be mutually beneficial. Done badly, the practice can be extractive and harmful.
By Sophie Benson
Fashion designers have long dipped their toes into cultures that aren’t their own in the pursuit of creative inspiration. Sometimes, what comes to life from the moodboard is considered more theft than homage.
From Prada claiming India’s Kohlapuri chappals (sandals) as its own design earlier this year to Isabel Marant recreating the Tlahuitoltepec blouse (specific to the Indigenous Mixe community in Oaxaca, Mexico) a decade ago, it too often seems to slip the minds of Western brands and designers to adequately credit the source of their inspiration. The impacts are manifold, from compounding colonial narratives and diluting cultural context to funnelling money away from rightful recipients.
Done right, however, incorporating traditional and Indigenous textiles and crafts into contemporary fashion design can be a force for good. It can provide new markets for artisans and preserve techniques that are threatened with extinction – but only by completely turning fashion’s extractive tendencies on their head.
