Is it still cultural appropriation if you are not aware of it?

"Do you find it offensive when foreigners wear your garments?"

Marta Lema gives me a baffled look and a small laugh. She is one of the several merchants and artisans that are allocated in Plaza de los Ponchos, a nickname by locals for the textile market in Otavalo, a small town in Ecuador that has been praised by tourists and that stands as a must-visit spot for anyone who is in the South American country.

The place is mostly attractive to tourists because of the people who work in it. Though it is called a plaza, it's a market were several stalls hold iconic textiles of traditional weavings. Every possible colour is in display in sweaters, joggers, blankets, jackets or even carpets. A stroll through Plaza de los Ponchos is a unique experience: you'll listen to several merchants offer you any type of clothing and if you hesitate even for a second, they'll offer a discount. As you walk through their stalls, the amazing variety of woven objects and their rainbow like combinations will mesmerize you. The mixture of traditional images and innovations created for textile industries, such as zippers and handbags, make everything in this plaza a discovery for fashion lovers. But, where do all of these unconventional fashion looks come from?

The indigenous group Otavalos make all of these items. This ethnic group has been in this country since the 16th century. Though they traditionally speak kiwchua, they became bilingual after the Spanish conquerors arrived to what was previously the Inca Empire. Ecuador has several ethnic groups but Otavalos are perhaps the most known natives of this country thanks to the rich colours of their textile designs and creative artisan jewellery. All of these items have been exported all around the world and they have reached recognition mostly based on their unique creations that catch the eye of anyone who visits Plaza de los Ponchos.

I keep staring at Marta, waiting for any kind of answer. She finally shakes her head in disbelief. Her perplexed glare makes me wonder if she knows or even cares about cultural appropriation.

In the last few years, several fashion brands and designers have been accused of ripping off communities of their traditional and cultural aesthetics. Their designs have been used to profit clothing companies giving no credit, creative or monetary wise, to the ethnic groups they used for inspiration. I try my best to explain to Martha Lema what this means, she still shakes her head when I repeat my question.

"I'm proud when 'gringos' visit and buy our things, like our mask of Diablo Huma," she replies. "I don't think that people are taking away our culture, they are learning from it."

Mask of Diablo HumaThe legend of the mask of Diablo Huma is part of Ecuadorian culture, but it's mostly connected to Otavalos. Diablo Huma or "devil head" is the main character of the Inti Raymi, the "sun festival". Its job is to scare away demons that will damage the crops or that will try to ruin good energy during the year. Whoever carries this mask on that year's festival edition would customarily bathe in paccha, a waterfall, in order to achieve the necessary energy to complete the traditional dance that is performed during the festival's ceremony. This tradition continues onto this day in Otavalo and is considered one of the city's sacred rituals.

I overhear a couple's conversation in a few stalls next to the one I'm talking to Martha Lema. The foreigner visitors point at the mask and one of them tries it on, his companion laughs and takes a picture with him wearing it. He asks for the price in English and immediately pays before I listen to him excitedly say: "How cool is this for Halloween?"

Cultural apropiation is a relatively new term; it arose in academic circles during the 1990s. George Lipsitz first loosely proposed it in his book "The possessive investment in whiteness", he related it to the term "strategic anti-essentialism". This means that when the majority culture attempts to strategically adopt qualities of a minority's culture, it must take great care to recognize the social and historical circumstances and its meaning to the minorities. This should be made as an effort to avoid the already uneven power balance that a social group has over minorities. But it has never happened.

There have been several complains from minorities about their culture being used in order to profit from it but in the fashion world, there seems to be a new claim every day. Though it might seem as a new thing, fashion cultural appropriation has been around for many centuries. For example, during the 17th century, British aristocracy appropriated Scottish traditional clothing Tartan. Traditionally, this fabric was used by Scottish people to differentiate their regions. Colours and sets of the tartans varied depending on their isle, clans would be able to distinguish allies and enemies by the criss-crossed horizontal and vertical lines but once it reached British Aristocracy, it became "fashionable". The expansion of this desirable fabric went all the way to the United States where it became work wear and was widely known as the "iconic outfit" of cowboys, none of them who were of Scottish descent. The Tartan "trend" prevails till this day as many clothing items are sold by luxury brands like Burberry, one of the first to trademark tartan under "Burberry Check", however, it has never acknowledged its Scottish heritage.

The fashion industry considers that, somehow, cultural appropriation is needed in order for designers to innovate. Osman Ahmed, a writer for Business of Fashion stated that without cultural appropriation, fashion would lack the freedom to embrace fantasy, curiosity and interpretation. But the main argument for cultural appropriation in fashion lies in what the designer looks like: white women in cornrows for Valentino's 2018 spring fashion show was "innovative", tribal women wearing cornrows in their native countries of Africa was "low class". But the unfairness of cultural appropriation in fashion doesn't limit to perception based on who wears it, it also comes with other types of repercussions.

James O. Young wrote about it in his book "Cultural Appropriation and the Arts", he mentioned that there are two ways in which this might be wrong: when it's unjustifiably offensive or when it deprives a culture of something, for instance, robbing a culture of economic, educational or other opportunities that can be beneficial only to them. Rachel Dolezal has been an example of the latter, as she earned a scholarship in Howard University, one that was intended for an African American working in the field of arts.

Cultural appropriation is not only about taking away opportunities from minorities, it also implies an inmoral use of someone else's culture for profit or to create a "trend". The problem lies in the "validation" that Western Societies have over minorities, leaving them as the "exotic" part of the world instead of celebrating their innovations. It happened in the music industry with Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Iggy Azalea and Justin Bieber when they adopted a "blaccent" and used African North American heritage to appeal to masses, basically celebrating everything that this culture has to offer but presenting it through caucasian artists. When it comes to the fashion industry… what type of cultural appropriation has happened?

Nowadays, many races and ethnic groups have been victims of cultural appropriation. Native North Americans saw their traditional headdress in 2012 on top of Karlie Kloss' head while she modelled for Victoria's Secret Fashion show. Hindi culture was part of a "fashion trend" in Coachella in 2014 when people at the festival adapted the bindi head mark to their outfits. African tribes patterns have been used by fashion brands, most recently by Valentino during spring-summer 2016 fashion collection.

"I feel sad for these people (Otavalos) because they are very ignorant about this subject," said Sara Uvidia, a fashion student at Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador. "It's really sweet but it saddens me because they don't know the cultural impact they have in fashion."

"It's really nice to see how many people come to the country and look and something and be like 'yes, that's something that I want to take home' but the reality of it is that not all of them are going to keep it at home. Some of them will go as far as to try to recreate it and pass it as their own, like how Loewe did," she concluded.

Loewe is a luxury fashion brand from Spain. It was founded in 1846 and has been a staple brand of iconic Spanish fashion. Most recently, Queen Sofia of Spain has been seen using several of their handbags. In 2014, Irish born Jonathan Anderson, took the role of creative director of Loewe and in September 2017, he presented the fashion house collection for spring/summer 2018. As he told the fashion magazine Vogue backstage of his show, Jonathan aimed to represent a free woman.

It was in November 2017 that Joshe Ordoñez, an Ecuadorian Fashion designer based in New York noticed a familiar figure in the pictures of Loewe's fashion collection. A wool sweater with the design of two minimalist women wearing white hats. To any other person, this would have been an innovative creation of the fashion house but to Joshe it screamed only one thing: "Las chismosas".

Traditional Otavalo's design "Las Chismosas""Las chismosas" is a traditional design of Otavalos. It means "gossipers" in Spanish and is a playful term to describe when women from this community gather to talk. Though there are many similar in Bolivia and Peru, Otavalo's weaving of three women gathered with clay pots are distinguishable with their dark coloured hats and single black braid. It's a staple design of Andean creations that are usually placed in paintings, murals, carpets and clothing items. In fact, it was one of the most displayed items while I was visiting Plaza the los Ponchos; it was featured in almost every stall.

"I was really disappointed but I was also happy because I thought that we have very valuable things, elements of our culture that can be appreciated out of our country but I was angry at the way the brand published where this cultural elements came from," Joshe explained.

Loewe's announcement about the inspiration behind the sweater was "liberty prints from London, paisleys from India, traditional hand-woven fabrics from South America and North Africa". This wasn't enough for Joshe Ordoñez so she launched an online petition to force the brand to give proper credit to Otavalo's merchants and their designs. As of March 2018, the petition has over 10,000 signatures but Loewe decided to explain their case to Joshe regardless of this.

"After my campaign, they (Loewe) got in touch with me, specifically the director of marketing and the creative director to explain to me that yes, they were in Ecuador to work with artisans but they will only say that these elements come from the Andean region because they don't have any investigation to say that these elements come from Ecuador," she continued, "I think that being Ecuadorian makes me part of their culture. Even though I'm not otavaleña I felt entitled to publicly denounce Loewe."

Otavalos have developed a business sense, time is money; several of them rejected my proposition to talk about their designs and work. The few minutes that others were willing to give were mostly as they kept on track of what they had sold that day. Others allowed to be interviewed as they were selling their textiles to visitors. Otavalo's use of their culture for their textiles, jewellery and artisan creations in order to sustain themselves has been a practice that they have developed throughout the years. Their business abilities are almost natural to them.

"It's okay to share, they have been selling these items for so many years now but it's another to just disregard their work and sell them for almost 10 times more what they get… it's ridiculous!" Sara Uvidia mentioned, it was visible that this was a sensible subject for her as it was also one of the main reasons she decided to study fashion design. "I remember being a girl and visiting Otavalo in the weekends because my dad was from a small town nearby and now when I remember how I looked at all those colours… I would be so inspired! But for me to make it as a designer, I have to be able to create something new… not just rip it off."

Loewe's case was probably the first case of cultural appropriation that affected Ecuadorian ethnic groups. Joshe Ordoñez had known about someone that tried to get the Otavalos to denounce Loewe's designs. "This person had talked to the community, telling them about this case and trying to figure out if there could be something done about it but without the support of our government, it didn't go any further. The director of IEPI (Ecuadorian Institute of Intellectual Property) told me that there is nothing to be done if the community doesn't denounce it but he's completely wrong because art. 515 in our constitution says that the government can do it if they don't."

This article is part of Ecuador's Code of Knowledge, a regulatory document introduced into this country's law system. It has been active since 2016 and the art. 515 states that: "The government does not own the rights over traditional knowledge, however, in cases in which the lawful owners cannot use their rights by their own will, the government through the secretary of higher education of science, technology and innovation, aiming only to protect, act and conserve traditional knowledge, will take their right to grant permission and will pact sharing benefits. The benefits given in this cases will be used to strengthen traditional knowledge."

"I think that in terms calling out these situations we are very lost, I don't think that indigenous communities have denounced this type of things at any moment," Joshe concluded.

Diana Conderozo, another Otavalo merchant, does not know what cultural appropriation means either, but she doesn't think that people come over and "steal" her work.

"We are selling our textiles everywhere and people come and are grateful and excited to see them. We are happy when they buy it and take it to another country, it means we are sharing our culture." She keeps weaving while we talk about what she is crafting, she's making a traditional garment of Otavaleñas, a white silk shirt embroidered with flowers of different colours, predominantly gold and pink along the collar of the shirt. The shirt itself is made in a machine but the stitched decorations are still made by hand.

Loewe's knit sweaters can go from £600 and up. The luxury brand has stores all around the world and sells their clothing online throughout Asia, Europe and North America. When it comes to their crafts, Loewe has a workshop in Madrid where 24 men and women use different methods to create the fashion house's iconic designs. According to their website, the knowledge and experience of Loewe has been "transferred from generation to generation for over 170 years".

Otavalos have been using the same technique for their weavings that they have learned from their taitas (fathers) and mamas (mothers) for many centuries. Though it's not clear where they learned this technique from, it has been historically thought that Spanish conquerors forced them to weave so they could compete with Egyptian and French crafts. I see a couple of tourists approach the stand where I'm talking to Diana; their faces light up when they touch the fabrics. One of them, a woman, talks in broken Spanish, she asks Diana about her work. She replies in English and offers them her merchandise.

Otavalo women's traditional clothing on display."It's 1 for $15 or 2 for $25," they shake their heads. "No? Okay, 2 for $20" They shake their heads once again before leaving. "Final offer! Both $18."

They couple look at each other before nodding and coming back to Diana's stand, she lets the woman pick which one of the shirts she likes the most before placing them in a brand-less plastic bag. The designs that Otavaleños like Diana make daily are unique, all of them are hand made. Unknowingly, each merchant in Plaza de los Ponchos has a unique design in their hands but not one of them knows the value that one of kind items have in the fashion world.

Joshe Ordoñez admits that as a designer, her inspiration comes from ethnic weavings and creations of tribes in Ecuador but she tries her best to limit herself to be encouraged by them. "I think that every design must be made with social responsibility, whether we are making an interpretation of their figures or if we are going to use only indigenous materials from Ecuador. I think that everything has to be made thinking if you're disrespectful to a community or the environment. Whenever I work with cultural themes in my collections I think and wonder if, somehow, I'm harming the technique, this are the type of things we should focus on."

Plaza de los Ponchos, Otavalo - EcuadorI keep walking around Plaza de los Ponchos, looking at the merchants exchanging their products with locals and visitors alike. I stare at Otavaleños while they keep up their work, it's barely half a day and not all of them have sold an item. I wonder if they will keep selling their crafts unaware of the impact they have in the fashion world and how valuable their products really are. I see many other tourists arrive in tiny vans and being lead by Ecuadorians into the market, they talk to them a little about the town, general things about the people and other facts about Otavalo. Most of the foreigners listen vaguely while their eyes wander through the crafts on display.

I look at the history and traditions that Otavalo's creations hold, their ancient costumes, their iconic clothing, their art represented through weavings and embroiders. Most of which will never be heard outside of this plaza or outside of Ecuador. I think about how many foreigners will have them on display on their houses and what would they say to describe it: Trendy? Traditional? Picturesque? Not a single word that would come close to describe the fashion impact that Otavalos are creating.

Before I leave, I thank Diana for her time and ask for two scarves, she smiles and hands them to me the same brand-less plastic bag she has been giving her buyers before. As I make my way out of Plaza de los Ponchos, the only sound I can overhear is the words of other Otavalo merchants that are constantly repeating:

"What can I do for you? You'd like a poncho, a sweater, these beautiful carpets… all authentic fabric. You're interested? I can make you an offer…"

Disclaimer: Originally published at Medium (March 2018)