Brand New at Borrowed Boutique!
In recent years, people have become increasingly aware of the borrowing that occurs in the fashion industry. This entails large corporations mass-producing stolen designs from independent artists and small brands, but also the use of various cultural and ethnic clothes as inspiration. This is why I chose to create Borrowed Boutique, which, as implied in its name, represents the brands that utilize designs with no credit to the origin or history of garments.
I created a fake website for Borrowed Boutique on slide one. The background and setup of the website are taken from the rapidly growing fast fashion label, Edikted (https://edikted.com/collections/new-in), but there are dozens of very similar fast fashion stores I could have used. The photos featured on the website are from four different brands founded by people of color that specialize in creating authentic cultural wear(links in the key). However, the name for each item is taken from a different fast fashion website that sells a strikingly similar product(links in key). While the names match the pieces of clothing perfectly, the fast fashion brands neglect to use traditional names and terms like the original websites do. The “Yellow Organza Sharara Set With Floral Patch Embroidery And Dupatta” from Kalki Fashion becomes “Nellie Light Yellow Pleated Maxi Dress and Scarf Set” when sold by American brand Lulus. By renaming clothing to be ethnically neutral, it becomes more palatable to the Western audience they market to, but also strips away credit from the people and cultures that invented the styles.
I chose to add a page featuring an item and its descriptions. The line “Handwoven and Hand Embroidered” is actually taken from the website of the pashmina scarf (https://www.pashmina.com/faqir-pink-pashmina-shawl/). Notably, the scarf costs a large $3,199, which reflects the high-quality cashmere used and the countless hours it takes to make an authentic pashmina and pay artisans a fair wage. While fast fashion garments are also made by hand, they cut corners in order to keep the cost of production low. This often includes inhumane exploitation of workers, dangerous conditions, and a lack of quality control. This is why I added “Don’t Wash.” to the item care. Fast fashion brands don’t make items with the intention of them being worn for years; they actually hope that people will throw them out and buy a replacement.
My key is the result of an imaginary lawsuit, as a reference to how restrictions on copying mainly result from legal action. The key features a side-by-side comparison of an original ethnic garment and the fast fashion counterpart as a means of showing the undeniable similarity. I hope that this adds a moment of realization for viewers to spread awareness of covert plagiarism in the fashion industry, but also encourages them to be more open-minded when shopping and explore diverse brands and support them.
I think that I accomplished my goal of exemplifying how brands borrow the designs of others, and how there are alternatives that people can shop from while supporting smaller businesses that focus on creating high-quality and authentic garments that look quite similar. While my project is technically a plagiarism of another plagiarism, I attempted to execute it in a satirical way that highlights the fluidity of borrowing in the fashion industry and how it can appear in unexpected ways. None of the photos I used were original, and certainly not the names either, but the final result meshes two worlds that are separated, even though they have so many commonalities.