HAUTE COUTURE BURKA - IS IT FASHION OR CULTURAL APPROPRIATION?

By: Julie Bujakewitz

After more than a year of Covid lockdowns, the annual Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art returned on September 13, 2021, with the theme “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion” - a tribute to and a reflection on American fashion. Kim Kardashian found a new way to make headlines by wearing a black Balenciaga head-to-toe bodysuit, with a thigh-length t-shirt-dress with flared sleeves worn over it, covering every part of her body, including her face. Only her long black sleek ponytail could be seen in the back.

Questions about revealing and concealing women’s bodies are as old as fashion itself, and opinions vary drastically depending on time, place, context, function, cultural codes, and many other factors.

Questions about cultural appropriation, cultural insensitivity, or cultural disrespect are even more prevalent in the fashion world today, as we collectively learn to distinguish between the impacts of colonial legacies and capitalist exploitation of various non-Western cultures in a globalized society oversaturated by images.

The response to Kim Kardashian’s choice of outfit on social media has been surprising because of the amount of support she has received from her followers and fans who celebrated her outfit - traditionally worn as modesty wear by Muslim women, and often used as a decoy in conversations about immigration, assimilation, and feminism, but never really considered “high fashion.” So we have to ask, why is a head-totoe garment worn by women of colour and Muslim women often considered a “threat” (either to national security or to women’s rights) but when worn by a celebrity like Kardashian (who is known for “breaking the internet” with her nude photos) it is regarded as red-carpet fashion?

To this day, many countries continue to ban burkas, niqab, and hijabs, and not even a month before the Met Gala, the US troops pulled out of Afghanistan, which they first invaded, and now left to the Taliban. Aghani women have been campaigning all over the world against the burka laws, but many Muslim women wear it as a sign of empowerment and expression of their identities, yet we still continue to question their choices and their right to express their identities through their choice of clothing with various restrictions or prejudices.

The response to Kim Kardashian’s choice of dress is thought-provoking and perhaps hypocritical because we are so eager to support white women’s choices when it comes to their use of fashion for self-expression. But what many of the Kardashian fans fail to grasp is that it is a privilege granted by her celebrity, class, race, and cultural capital that allow her to wear what is denied - or at the very least seen as questionable - for other non-white, non-privileged women. Even in the countries where it is legal to wear full-cover garments, many women live in fear of being harassed, discriminated, or being labelled as “oppressed” or “under-educated” for their dress choices. But if a Reality-TV star can make a controversial garment fashionable, is it hypocritical to grant her even more privileges denied to other women? Is she culturally appropriating other women’s cultural or religious choices and reducing them down to a fashion statement? Or is she deliberately drawing attention to these culturally insensitive ways of using women and fashion to further cultural colonialism and discriminations? It is a complex terrain to navigate, but still important to consider, because it is still a facet of the white supremacy (Layla F. Saad, 2020:114).