Fashion Week and cultural appropriation - you couldn't possibly have one without the other, could you?
Celeb-designer Marc Jacobs was blasted online after his show at New York Fashion Week featured models - including Kendall Jenner, Gigi and Bella Hadid, Adriana Lima and Karlie Kloss - walking the runway in pastel-y dreadlocks.
![Models Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner wear fake dreadlocks at Marc Jacobs' NYFW show.](/web/20160916103215im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/h/l/h/o/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grhklt.png/1474000501540.jpg)
"Why didn't you hire models with real dreads?! Is it that hard Marc Jacobs?!", one Instagram commenter wrote, calling the show "hideous and disappointing".
"There are much better points of inspiration for dreads and locs... Like ones that naturally and beautifully grow out of a black woman's head," another commenter added.
ive decided that i will not be posting anything from the marc jacobs spring '17 collection due to the blatant appropriation of black culture
— ㅤ (@cIassycouture) September 15, 2016
Hope Marc Jacobs is ready for the cultural appropriation hate. Seriously what was he thinking especially since he cast like 2 black models?
— Rhiannon (@RhiannonBegeal) September 15, 2016
Like cultural appropriation has been so thoroughly and extensively addressed this year. Fashion houses like @marcjacobs have NO EXCUSE.
— Lizzy (@yasleopardj) September 15, 2016
The story behind the featured dreads is epic, stretching over three long months of work, missing just that one crucial moment where someone, anyone, on Jacobs' team piped up to say, "Guys? I don't think people are keen on this kinda thing anymore...".
Apparently, Jacobs' look was inspired by the colourful locks of trans director Lana Wachowski, who featured in his Spring/Summer campaign earlier this year.
He sent a picture of Lana to his hairstylist, Redken Global creative director Guido Palau, who tracked down the extensions in an Etsy store called 'Dreadlocks By Jena', run by Florida mother, Jena Counts.
More than 11,000 metres of the woollen wigs were then hand-dyed by Counts and her daughter over six days, in a range of more than 300 shades to be matched to Jacobs' collection. The duo were even flown out and holed up in an NYC apartment by Palau in case of any last-minute dye jobs, resulting in the final looks featured on the runway.
Tellingly, Palau, speaking to The Cut backstage at the show, said the issue of misappropriation never even entered his mind.
"I don't really think about that. I take inspiration from every culture," he said, when questioned on the politics of sending a bunch of largely white models down the runway in fake dreadlocks.
"Style comes from clashing things. It's always been there - if you're creative, if you make food, music, fashion, whatever, you're inspired by everything. It's not homogeneous. Different cultures mix all the time. You see it on the street. People don't dress head-to-toe in just one way."
Even more insultingly, he added that the hair was inspired by "movements like rave culture, acid house and club culture, travellers, Boy George and Marilyn," also adding '80s London, anime and Harajuku girls. When asked if Rasta culture was an inspiration, he said "No, not at all."
As Alix Tunnel, writing for Refinery 29 put it: "Any time one borrows from a culture, the history of that culture must be acknowledged. The Marc Jacobs hair borrowed from The Club Kids, who borrowed from Black culture. The issue is that no one said so."
Jacobs and Palau have previously courted controversy with their choice of "borrowed" hair looks.
Their show at last year's New York Fashion Week included models in what Palau described as Bjork-inspired "mini buns", which the internet later explained were actually "Bantu knots" of African origin, worn and popularised by the black community.
The backlash sparked the hashtag #ITaughtMarcJacobs, with black women taking to Twitter to post pictures of themselves having long sported the "new hair trend".