07/06/2019
Online sewing community AT WAR over cultural appropriation
Last week, popular fashion patternmaker Papercut Patterns posted a short video on Instagram of one of their patterns being reprinted. The clip was just long enough to see the name of the pattern, the Kochi jacket, passing through the rollers.
Three weeks ago, that pattern had a different name. The square-cut short jacket, with optional side ties, was released in June 2017 with the name Kochi Kimono. For 18 months, amateur sewers — most prefer the term “sewist”, for reasons of homonym — had been making their own versions and sharing the results on Instagram tagged with .
Then, on 13 May, Asian-American woman Helen Kim replied to a new photo of the garment to say that to call it a kimono, without any connection beyond a certain boxiness about the sleeves to the traditional Japanese garment, was cultural appropriation.
The post blew up. Those who agreed with Kim were accused of conducting a witch hunt against a female-owned company; those who rejected it were accused of racism. Japanese-American woman Emi Ito, a campaigner against cultural appropriation, was tagged in. She and Kim were suddenly fielding racist commentary on their own accounts.
Read the full story at -
Boom in home-made fashion hides bitter divisions about size inclusivity, race and if a kimono should be called a jacket
