The New Caftan?

In this week's cultural appropriation digest, this morning in the Readables, you may have noticed I included a story from Refinery 29 about Elle Canada dubbing the Dashiki as the newest trend. 

Elle Canada, following the publication of this erroneous piece, shared this tweet.

The "newest it-item of note."?

Oh Canada...

They even went as far as to call the dashiki, a garment worn throughout Western Africa forever, the new caftan, a type of tunic or robe worn by several cultures, mostly middle eastern, for thousands of years. (In other words, you're comparing one culturally appropriated item to another.)

Following the expected Black Twitter and conscious media beat down, Elle has since taken down the tweets and posts. But just because the piece and social media have been removed doesn't mean that the conversation has stopped. 

Seriously, black Twitter, I had some of the same reactions...

Now let me say that as fashion people, we are programmed to notice when certain items begin to gain popularity. So when Zendaya Coleman, Rihanna, and Beyoncé all wore dashikis pretty recently, it would grab the attention of us style spotters. 

But to call it a "trend" instead of acknowledging the dashiki as an item of traditional heritage that it is does a major disservice to people of the African Diaspora. By calling a piece of traditional clothing a "trend", it implies that this piece is something that will eventually go out of style. Obviously this is a wrong assumption, because the dashiki has been around for over a millennia. Talk about staying power.

Let me just get real with you people: this is getting exhausting. Following the Allure's "loose Afro", Marc Jacob's mini buns, the existence of Rachel Dolezal and Vogue's announcement of the year of the booty highlighting Iggy Azelia, it feels like this year should have instead been dubbed "the year of cultural appropriation". 

The dashiki is more than a top or a beach cover up, the same way the Afro is more than a trending hair do. Ou guys just don't get it, and unfortunately until you do, you will keep receiving these verbal beat downs from those who do.

Dear people, get your own culture.