I was doing some online shopping this week, and it got me thinking about the fine line between tastefully incorporating the aesthetics of another culture and being a straight up ignorant asshole—and I am not sure anyone can clearly identify where that line is drawn.
As I was gathering ideas for a last-minute Halloween costume and frantically searching through random noun-turned-slut assortments, I came across the “Dreamgirl Sexy Middle Eastern Arab Girl Burka Halloween Costume,” previously sold by Sears. This piece of tasteless appropriation doesn’t teeter between cultural borrowing and plain ignorance. Besides obviously disrespecting a culture, there are a couple blatant reasons this costume is politically incorrect. Let’s start with the name: It’s not a “burqa,” it’s niqab. And, why are belly-dancing coins dangling from it? Did someone just brainstorm the first three words that came to mind after “Middle Eastern” and threw them on fabric? Veils! Belly Dancing! Bedouins! And, whore it up, boys!
In Western society, Middle Eastern women often get the reputation of being sacred, good-girl virgins, oppressed by their clothing and locked in the basement by the man of the house—only to be let out if food or cleaning is involved. So will Middle Eastern culture only be accepted and incorporated into Western culture if it’s exotic and sensual but not assertive or political? Are Middle Eastern and Islamic clothes looked down on unless they are used as exotic, sexy costumes, ironically playing with the “good-girl virgin” stereotype?
But this ridiculous standard isn’t limited to Halloween costumes; celebrities think Middle Eastern clothes are costumes too. M.I.A walked the red carpet to an award ceremony in a niqab back in 2010. Then Lady GaGa played dress up with one just last month. Lady GaGa is provocateur. She collects style points from shocking and controversial headlines. I highly doubt Lady GaGa actually values a niqab’s religious or cultural attributes. But at this point, is it really even shocking anymore? Aren’t there more important things going on in the world to shock us? It’s trite; it’s tired; it’s stale.
Earlier this week I was eyeing a letterman jacket on Jeremy Scott’s website when I was attacked with what sounded like a remixed instrumental from the Aladdin soundtrack. A video for his most recent fashion line began to play. As I watched the models strut the catwalk, I stopped giving a shit about any Jeremy Scott jacket. At points in the video models wore sheer or mesh pieces with their nips and ass covered by a cut up keffiyeh, and at other points they sported mesh tops and dresses covered in dangling golden gun pieces. I present you with the “Arab Spring 2013” collection. Jeremy told Billboard that what inspired this line was the news. He kept hearing Arab Spring and thought it sounded like a fashion line. The Arab Spring is a movement that involves crumbling countries, death tolls in the thousands, and babies with their intestines gorging out of their stomach—not really the stuff that makes up a fashion line.
Jeremy wasn’t using the keffiyeh to show his solidarity with the Palestinian people, which is how it’s properly worn. The Arab Spring didn’t even cause much of a spark in Palestine. How does it make sense to include it? Maybe he just thought it would be cool to disregard their history and current-day oppression, by cutting up a prominent symbol of their resistance and wrapping it around a model like a sorority girl-gone-wild toga. Because that’s really worldly and out there?
That wasn’t even the worst of it. The models strutted down the catwalk with weapons. He might as well have ended the show by screamnig, “Look at those crazy Arabs. They all just run around the desert in crazy turbans and shoot each other with AK-47s.” But the Arab Spring was as tragic as it was successful for a lot of people in the Middle East. Some countries have successfully revolted, but a lot of lives have been lost in the midst of it. Imagine if Elie Saab, a Middle Eastern designer, decided to launch a 9/11-inspired fashion line and called it “Ground Zero,” full with disfigured American flags and commercial airplane pendants and jewelry pieces?
Oh, and by the way Jeremy, using the keffiyeh as an accessory is soooo 2009.