BIHOR COUTURE – A traditional Romanian brand is standing up against cultural appropriation

Cultural Appropriation = the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, without showing that you understand or respect this culture (Cambridge Dictionary).

Big fashion houses have been using inspiration from the local cultures of many countries without acknowledging that culture or giving credit to the original creators.

Beau Monde, a fashion magazine with 100% original Romanian content, together with McCann Romania, decided to take a stand against cultural appropriation by launching BIHOR COUTURE, a Romanian fashion brand with designs created by the same Bihor County craftsmen that the large fashion houses failed to credit.

Stella McCartney used traditional African motives in her Summer/Spring 2018 collection. Louis Vuitton debuted a line of blankets, worn as coats by the people of Besotho, as part of their menswear collection. Dior made an entire collection out of a print identical to one of a local Indian designer. Just last year, Tory Burch copied a Romanian coat from Oltenia. Then Dior included a Romanian jacket from Bihor in their couture collection and is selling that jacket for 30,000 Euro, but no royalties are returned to the original creators.