This ^ is a photo from Gucci’s runway show in February. Gucci has been designing high-fashion turbans for a while, for men and women, but this is absolutely styled as a Sikh’s dastar, a turban which is an article of faith for all Sikhs. It’s religious and cultural. And Gucci modeled it on a nothingburger white dude for the runway show. That’s bad enough. But it got so much worse:
Gucci is facing backlash yet again, this time for a product called the “Full Indy Turban.” The Italian fashion brand was selling a pre-wrapped turban by that name for $800, although the price has since been removed and the piece marked as “sold out” on all of the websites on which it appeared. The product, which was originally worn by white models on the label’s fall 2018 runway, appears to have been removed from circulation after facing criticism from the Sikh community.
In a statement to NBC News, the Sikh Coalition said of the product, “The turban is not just a fashion accessory to monetize, but a religious article of faith that millions of Sikhs around the world view as sacred.”
Back in February, Gucci was one of the fashion lines getting slammed for their tone-deaf “blackface” designs, including an absolutely terrible sweater (you can see it here). So, in that same month that Gucci was getting well-deserved sh-t for the blackface sweater, they decided to throw a turban on a white model and name the turban the “Full Indy Turban.” People need to be fired at Gucci. Enough. It’s pathetic that this sh-t is still coming through multiple design, marketing and sales people.
These are other images that came up when I searched for “Gucci turban.” Gucci did turbans for their 2018 Resort collection too. I wonder what they called them last year.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Welp
They got the attention they wanted.
Ding, ding, ding…..we got a winner.
Yep, they are doing it on purpose. No one is this stupid.
Honest question- I know that particular style is not ok because it’s obviously been designed to directly resemble a religious piece (don’t even know if I’m saying that right) but does this mean ALL turbans are not ok? I think they’re fabulous and while they don’t go with my leggings and sweatshirt mom uniform, I think they could be styled well for nicer outfits.
I fully respect that there are things that are inappropriate, like religious attire, etc, but I can’t quite wrap my head around (no pun intended) segregating all aspects of fashion and hair to people who “belong to” those groups, because we are slowly becoming one big melting pot, and think appreciation is beautiful and fantastic, and stepping in the right direction in becoming one big happy little world. Maybe it’s naive, but that’s me. However I do understand respect and want to give it where I can and not feel entitled to everything just because I’m here, you know?
Totally agree with you.
I think it’s a bit naive to think we’re a melting a pot or “becoming one big happy little world.” Some things are fiercely protected by groups because they were/are also fiercely persecuted. Just be thoughtful about your choices and try to understand history and context – I don’t think people who are genuinely doing that can go too wrong tbh.
@ eto, and Frida_K below, wonderful responses.
I’m not part of anyone’s melting pot and if there’s any form of a “one big happy little world” I would guess that comes out of a Wanderlust ad or some such.
I’ll keep my culture, history, and languages, thank you very much. I appreciate many other cultures and languages, and in fact speak several languages and am the product of a multicultural family.
However, becoming a whitened and brightened melting pot, where we’re all about the same shade and nobody “sees color”? Yeah, I don’t think so. I’m happy with my own kind and have no interest in that. I’m happy with my own cultural markers and appreciative of those of others.
The notion that a melting pot is a goal is, to me, an abomination.
I enjoy the term “tossed salad” for the places I’ve loved: ethnic neighborhoods to visit and enjoy the people and the food in. It’s what Los Angeles was to me in the 80s. Melting Pot was never accurate to me. I’m Mexican American. I like being Mexican American. There are Black people and White people in my family, and we like, and have opinions about, other cultures but also value our own separate cultures. My friends and I would visit the Crenshaw district for soul food and to cruise to flirt with the fellas, and Koreatown for karaoke and awesome K-BBQ. The Fairfax district was lovely because Kantor’s was opened 24 hours a day to get blintzes and you would see the Hasidic families walking around together. Everyone in LA knows King Taco in East LA, and now there are tons of mixed-culture taco places. And you get to speak with people who are there from different cultures to learn and make it interesting.
Keeping cultural touchstones is important, but sharing them is just as important to increase understanding and appreciation and to not “otherize” people.
@Christina:
I use the term “mixed salad” (ensalada mixta) and tend to agree with you on that notion but I’m probably a little more hostile around the subject of cultural appropriation than you seem. Maybe, who knows?
I’m always interested in other people’s languages and cultures and have no problem with others’ interest in mine. I get angry when the monolingual güeros try to make it seem like a melting pot is something to which we should all aspire, and/or they think it’s great fun to use and abuse my cultures’ markers and then discard them after chewing them up and whitening them out.
Respect and interest are one thing; homogenization and theft are another.
I guess I mean less of a melting pot of mush that’s all the same, and more of a delicious nuanced stew, where it’s a delicious blend of lots of different things that all compliment each other.
Thumbsup to NotThatMo below. Thank you. Visuals travel faster than ever these days, for us visual communicators out there…..be thoughtful and educated. It will help you.
I’ll try to answer. Nearly ten years on, the best essay on the topic is about jokes, not fashion, but it works in the same way: John Scalzi’s The Failure Mode of Clever is Asshole. Basically, what matters is how other people see things, not what you intended. It is often difficult and crazymaking to try to think about being racist or sexist or transphobic, but framing the question as “Would an X person think I’m being an asshole?” is probably a good place to start.
I draw far narrower lines around cultural appropriation than most of my friends. Some of this is acknowledging that homeland and diaspora populations can have very different attitudes towards creative works inspired by their culture.
However, this is a very clear case. All Sikhs, in the Punjab and the diaspora, hold this particular style of turban as a sign of their faith. In fact, it is one of the five (?) items Sikhs are supposed to always wear as an outward showing of their faith. As a Christian comparison, imagine that there were a special kind of cross, say plain with red borders, which meant that the wearer was following a known set of biblical rules. If a fashion house put it in their show, would it be “wrong’? As an artistic question, it would be open. But are they being assholes? Hell yes!
literally everything is appropriated. There is nothing 100% purely belonging to one culture or another. as soon as you scrape the surface of one thing, you unpeel layers upon layers of appropriation for everything. Everything is derivative and borne from humans living proximate to one another and sharing and borrowing influence. The cultural appropriation argument is absurd: one because of reasons I just stated and 2. because proving actual HARM is impossible. and 3. because for every outrage like this, we waste time and energy organizing and channeling our outrage to real things, like the 7 states that have passed near total abortion bans since Kavanaugh became a SC judge.
Mail-Mary bomb! AMEN
@ bros…. It could be more helpful, for some of us, to learn the tenants that underpin cultures that are ♡not-of-white supremacy or are intrinsically matriarchal, depending on the culture ♡ instead of settling for appropriating visuals…and then….there would not be a Kavan×@×gh….aka “actual harm” done. In your words.
And no. Not every ….thing…..”is appropriated”.
However, I deeply appreciate your passion. Go get it done 🙂 !
So, men appropriating female fertility rights is outrageous to you because HARM?
Also, people can multitask. You can care about being pro-choice in America and still acknowledge the nuances existing in rest of the world and its idiosyncracies. Does it bother you that millions of women around the globe don’t have choice regarding abortion in their countries, or that level of caring about others constitutes an absurd argument too?
Anyway, you do you.
Sorry, but that’s a bit extreme.
It is a common turban, something old ladies have been using forever.
They call it a FULL INDY TURBAN.
Really?
I know. I mean, these models look like idiots, but women have been wearing turbans for hundreds of years. The Regency era as well as the 60s and 70s.
.
Turbans were popular in Europe starting in the 14th century, over a hundred years before Sikhism originated. In western culture they have just been considered as headwear for women since the 1920s, so I think that’s what we’re conditioned to think..but since they’re worn primarily by men of the religion, maybe it’s the man wearing it that’s offensive?
Like Kaiser said, this particular style of turban is a direct copy of a Sikh’s dastar, a religious garment – the only people I’ve seen wearing the style in the 1st picture are Sikh. No one is coming for the wraps they sell in beauty supply stores or the ones the pictured ladies are wearing.
Yup. This is insulting and offensive. This is a religious garment. Gucci doesn’t care.
Turbans have been used in fashion for decades so the other style turbans here are nothing new even thought was not in fashion for a long time. But I have no idea why they used this style.
They’re jerks.
I’m Sikh and I think if Gucci wanted to make a turban for Sikh men/women to wear (you know you can be religious and like fashion too) then fine…but this was obviously catered for White people. That’s the offensive part. Also, that price for a turban is beyond a rip off ! Also, I don’t know how many of you have heard of RedBubble? They’ve had some backlash recently for putting portraits of Sikh Gurus on mini skirts ! What the hell is wrong with these companies ???
At this point, I’m thinking it was deliberate. Especially with the name they gave it.