Oh Uh-Uh: Comme des Garçons' lace front cornrow wigs

FashionBombDaily.com 
New decade, same appropriation.

The Japanese brand, Comme des Garçons is being dragged for its recent men's fall/winter 2020 fashion show during Paris Fashion Week where some of the male models were topped with braided lace front cornrow wigs, reports CNN.

When called out on it, hairstylist for the show, Julien d'Ys, claimed the styles were inspired by Egyptian princes. He wrote in an Instagram post.

"Dear all, My inspiration for the comme des garçons show was Egyptian prince. A Look I found truly beautiful and inspirational. A look that was an hommage. Never was it my intention to hurt or offend anyone, ever. If I did I deeply apologize."


The brand has released their own apology, according to Dazed. 
"The inspiration for the headpieces for Comme des Garçons menswear FW’20 show was the look of an Egyptian prince. It was never ever our intention to disrespect or hurt anyone – we deeply and sincerely apologise for any offense it has caused."
This isn't the 1st time Comme des Garçons has been in trouble with People of Color. In 2018, Comme des Garçons was called out for not using any Black models. In fact, according to Heroine, after a thorough investigation of the company's past runway shows, less than 10 Black models were found to have been featured at all.

So it seems they have upped their game from barely having any Black models to blatant cultural offense.
FashionBombDaily.com

Yawn. This is so tired.

What Julien doesn't know is that we know this song and dance very well. We can all Google the types of wigs and hairstyles Egyptian princes wore, and they were not awful cheap synthetic cornrow lace fronts. Not to mention, Egyptians are African and are (and were historical) Brown people, unlike who was present in their last 10 fashion shows.

We all know that cornrows are a style coming from the traditions of the African diaspora. We all know that co-opting these styles is cultural appropriation.

We all know it's not cool, and stealing from Black culture for the sake of art is just a lazy ploy to elicit the Black Rage marketing machine.

At this point, the cultural appropriation by brands, especially newer design groups like this one, is just lazy.

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