Source: ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT / Getty
Paris Fashion Week is underway and celebs and fashion’s fiinest have headed over to the city to see what’s to come from the top fashion brands. Unfortunately, the luxurious garbs are being overshawdowed with the cultural appropriation that hit the runway.
During the fashion show for the Japanese fashion line Comme Des Garçons, they revealed their designs from their Fall/Winter 2020 menswear collection but the wigs are what stole the show. Someone thought it was a bright idea to put cornrowed lace front wigs on white models to complete their look as they strutted the runway. Their shameful dispaly of cultural appropriation is causing the brand to receive major backlash via Twitter.
Comme Des Garçons was outed for not working with black models during most of its existence, so it’s interesting that they would choose to stayle the models with a lace front wig that mimicks a protective style worn by black people.
Source: Victor VIRGILE / Getty
Source: Victor VIRGILE / Getty
Source: Victor VIRGILE / Getty
“After reviewing the 54 runway shows (excluding the as yet unavailable Fall 1991 season) on Vogue, which includes a total of 2,533 looks, I was only able to identify 5 black models—a total of 32 appearances comprising 1.26 percent of the total runway exits—over the entire covered time span, “Martin Lerma wrote for Heroine back in 2018. “The last black model I was able to find who traversed the coveted Comme runway was Chrystèle Saint Louis Augustin in the Fall 1994 show. Meaning it has been nearly 24 years since a black model was included in a women’s Comme des Garçons presentation.”
The black models to ever appear in one of their fashion shows are Naomi Campbell, Veronica Webb, Beverly Peele and Anna Cleveland.
The hairstylist, Julien d’Ys, apologized on Instagram, saying his intetnion was to pay homage to Egyptian princes.
“Dear all, My inspiration for the comme des garçons show was Egyptian prince: A Look i found truly beautiful and inspirational. A look that was an hommage. Never was it my intention to hurt or offend anyone , ever. If I did I deeply apologize.”
Take a look of some of the tweets below.
https://twitter.com/ira/status/1218339497873526784
https://twitter.com/mollymolly000/status/1218587783956246529
