Ralph Lauren Named the Fabric. It Did Not Name India.
Ralph Lauren posted a gown covered in Indian embroidery and closed the post with a line about every garment carrying a history of its own. It did not say whose.
Mid-September, New York Fashion Week. On a deep pink gown sat gold embroidery that Indian designers and media identified as zardozi from Lucknow. The caption described shimmering silk-viscose and “hand-applied embellishments.” The word India did not appear. Lucknow zardozi has been a registered Geographical Indication since 2013, and more than 170,000 artisans make their living from it.
This is the third time this year. In March, earrings identified as Indian jhumkas went out with no word of where they came from. In April, a machine-printed bandhani skirt carried the craft’s name, one word and nothing more. And now this. All three times, not even a denial.
So let me ask. If that embroidery had come from a French atelier, would Ralph Lauren have left its name out?
Chanel bought the Paris embroidery house Lesage, and it names “Lesage embroidery” with pride. In the West, the name of origin is part of the price. Some names raise what a garment costs. Others are erased.
Everyone knows design begins with the artifacts of the world’s cultures and histories. Taking inspiration is not wrong. A design that is truly created anew speaks with pride. It names its source and explains what inspired it and how it was reinterpreted. Imitation cannot do that. With no inspiration behind it, it has nothing to explain, and it cannot name its source. Ralph Lauren’s caption explained only the fabric and the embellishments.
If one country’s craft keeps its name and another’s is erased, if the rule is how favored that country is, then it is not inspiration. It is discrimination that wants the thing but will not say where it came from. And it is imitation.
Every culture deserves respect of equal weight. For the people who carry a culture, having its name erased is itself an insult.
© Young Park. Written at HEXA Communications, Palm Springs.
Press inquiries: young@thehexa.com