African American Fashion Culture

The fashion world is dominated by whites but what about their culture? It’s been said before that there is no original idea and that still holds true. The fashion industry has had to reinvent itself since its start, in order to keep and recreate trends. Without the fashion worlds evolution, it would no longer exist. With this evolution comes cultural appropriation and a blatant disrespect for the cultures it borrows from. Style of dress and hairstyles that cause oppression in one culture is praised by another with more power. Fashion has transformed by way of borrowing from cultures who are discredited when they claim their own cultural aesthetics.
It's important for people in fashion to keep up with trends but even more important to create
According to an article written by jessica andres for fashion spot, During the fall 2016 fashion week, only 9.22% of the models were african american. Yet fashion moguls like Valentino implemented the use of cornrows on his models during the shows. His entire line was based on the continent of africa but not one model was african american. Cornrows originated in the african american culture in order to protect their hair from getting tangled. This protective hairstyle is nothing new. It's been popular in the black community since the early two thousands where singers like alicia keys and r kelly wore them. So, now the fashion industry seems to just catching on to the “trend”. Kylie jenner, Gwen stefani and many more have worn cornrows and its deemed edgy but no recognition is given to the black culture for creating the hair style. These styles were never deemed edgy when worn by those who created it. Instead, it's ghetto, unkempt or too ethnic. The fashion industry's appropriate hairstyles of black culture. Marc jacobs orchestrated a fashion show where he dressed white models in deadlocks. When addressed with the issue, he claimed not to see color or race. Then followed that declaration by saying that no one says anything to black women when they straighten their hair. True, straight hair styles are popular in white european cultures. Yet, no one discredits this and have not and will not ever be oppressed due to the style. Marc Jacobs “doesn't see race” but he also doesn't see the error in his