Valentino’s S/S 2016 collection had Twitter buzzing earlier this week—and not in a good way. The French fashion house sent an “Africa-inspired” collection down the runway, and as you can imagine, people were a bit offended.
There’s no denying that, as usual, the clothes at Valentino were beautiful—but where things went a little sour was the context in which they were presented. The show notes described the collection as being inspired by “wild, tribal Africa.” As if that didn’t make for enough of a problematic beginning, much of the show featured the types of stereotypical “African-inspired” details you would expect: feathers, beads and tribal prints. The models wore their hair in cornrows, but of the show’s 91 looks, only 10 were modeled by black women.
For what it’s worth, it appears that the collection was actually well-intentioned. Pierpaolo Piccioli, one half of the duo behind Valentino, told Vogue that, “The message is tolerance and the beauty that comes from cross-cultural expression.” IMO, it wasn’t really the clothes that were the problem here—while they walked a fine line, their beauty seemed to genuinely pay a tribute to African culture.
The real problems were the context of the presentation and more notably the cornrows, which has already caused well-publicized cultural appropriation controversies after being worn by celebs like Kylie Jenner on social media. Why did Valentino think sending 80 white models down the runway in the same hairstyle would be any different? It has been noted time and time again in the media the double standard that exists when women wear cornrows—white women are seen as being “edgy and chic,” meanwhile, black women who wear the hairstyle are often stereotyped as “ghetto.”
As for the casting decision, while Valentino’s choice to use almost entirely white models was obviously problematic, many critics felt that purposefully casting more women of color would have created the opposite problem. Would a cast made entirely of models of color, regardless of whether they were actually of African cultural background been any better? It’s a valid question.
What are your thoughts on the Valentino collection, collegiettes? Was it cultural appropriation or appreciation?