This is Anja Ploetz, a Paris based photographers’ agent in the fashion industry. In a recent interview in the New York Times (which you can read here), she talks about her love of sarees and how, for the past two years, she has only worn Indian dress.
To me this seems like nothing more than a fairly light interview accompanied by a rather nice picture but take a look at the comments of the NYT readers! Do we find this article as controversial as they do?
I read the interview, I think more of the criticism is coming from the fact she has appropriated items that have real meaning to communities in India (bindis and chura) without it being appropriate. I don’t think there’s a problem with people wearing the clothes of other cultures, plenty of Indians wear ‘Western’ clothes; I’m married to a Pakistani and I wear salwar kameez occasionally, because those clothes don’t have a ‘meaning’, they’re just everyday garments. Sarees are the same, excluding the particular outfits of certain cultural groups and bridal sarees, they’re all just clothes. But things like chura, or a mangal sutra carry a specific meaning, they’re a jewellery item for married women from certain communities. That should be treated with respect. It would be just as weird if she was wearing a wedding veil or something.
Indian women, correction, women from in and around the Indian sub-continent, have traditionally worn saris, regardless of their religion, ethnic group or caste. To me, the sari is a bit like the Scottish kilt, in that while it is a garment strongly associated with a particular region, it is also a garment that can go outside its traditional boundaries because it’s a terrific garment.
Nor does it make sense that a “saree-inspired dress” is acceptable on a firangi but a saree isn’t.
Yes, a sari is a challenging outfit to wear (the blouse, the drape, the sari itself and the accessories all have to work together harmoniously with the wearer) , firangis don’t always remember Sunny’s maxim that “a nice smile is the most important accessory”, and we often have difficulty finding that alluring balance between modest and skanky. We need to do our research to make sure that we don’t add or leave out elements that have a particular cultural meaning that may not be appropriate. (Example: Western women quite often wear a single gold anklet, whereas Indian women would wear a pair of anklets but not gold, because it is not appropriate to wear gold so near the earth. Example: Western fashion doesn’t object to the mixing of gold and silver, whereas this is scorned in Indian fashion. Example: current Western culture doesn’t seem to object to visible bra straps, Indian fashion quite rightly considers them utterly naff.)
That said, I think wearing a sari shows at least a degree of respect for Indian culture (provided the wearer isn’t simply trying to parody Indian dress).
So, I disobeyed the ‘first rule of the Internet’. — do not read the comments.
The thing is, that I’ve had each one of those comments play out in my head… Cultural appropriation and all. Am I appropriating? Am I appreciating? In what context must I honor which culture, and is it actually honor?
Iit reminds me of the story about the painter, Georgia O’Keefe, whose large paintings of up close florals, inspired many to write academic papers about the images evoking a feminist message because to them, it looked like female genitalia. Later, she was asked about this phenomenon in an interview and said that ‘the interpretation wasn’t me, it was them’.
People will always address folks presenting in the mode of an ‘other’ with some attention (appreciative, or not, and in some cases, as the Sikhs in Oak Creek, WI found out — deadly).
As for this woman, I’ll guess that she is going on what someone told her is ok, or not. And one of the commenters said that she might not care about the significance of the bindi/ bangles, just as Madonna didn’t care about the rosaries as necklaces, and the rest of it. Maybe the significance is in the intention, and to figure that out, you’d have to ask, and not make assumptions about her intention.