Mexico Must Do More to Protect Indigenous Fashion Designs, Experts Say

[Disir]

Mexico must work harder to protect Indigenous fashion designs against a plethora of global brands charged with borrowing or culturally appropriating artisan creations for years without giving credit, said lawyers and industry observers.

Their comments came as the Oaxaca Artisans Institute in Southern Mexico charged Australian clothing brand Zimmermann with plagiarizing Mazatec ethnic community patterns and designs in its “Pictures, the Riders Paneled Tunic Dress and Wide Brim Boater” blouse, part of its resort 2021 collection.

“The cross-stitched embroideries represent different symbolic elements like birds and flowers that reflect the nature of their communities, framed with different colorful stripes that distinguish one community from another,” the institute alleged in a statement last month.

The action threw the increasingly thorny debate of cultural appropriation back into the limelight after other international labels — most notably Isabel Marant, Carolina Herrera and Zara — have been entangled in similar accusations in Mexico, fueling uproar on social media.

Mexico Must Do More to Protect Indigenous Fashion Designs, Experts Say

Mexican communities are demanding brands making unauthorized use of Indigenous designs give impoverished communities "appropriate credit."

wwd.com

I agree that Mexico needs to build an industry around this. The time for that is now.

 

[Blackrook]

If there's no copyright on these patterns then there's no copyright.