Mexico City, (EFE) .- The governor of Oaxaca, Solomon Jara Cruz, reported that a possible complaint is analyzed for the alleged cultural appropriation of huaraches of a designer in collaboration with the Adidas and plagiarism brand for the use of the name of the State in the design.
The design was officially presented on Sunday at the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico and is the Model of Huaraches ‘Oaxaca Slip-on’, of the Mexican-American fashion designer Willy Chavarría, who developed its design inspired by the traditional shoes of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag, in the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca.
Chavarría’s design uses the traditional leather huarache with the classic cross fabric and mixes it with a high sole ‘Sneaker’, part of Adidas’s aesthetics.
“These huaraches are in the style of Yalalag, we are for the first time seeing this designer named Willy Chavarría, he is in collaboration with Adidas and presented this reinterpreted Huarache model, which is typical of Oaxaca,” said Jara Cruz at a press conference when reading an informative note of a media.
“It’s a very beautiful huarache, I don’t know if you have seen it (…) We are also going to ask our Yaltecos brothers to work together to be able to put a complaint (…) I don’t know who Willy Chavarría is,” he added.
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The state president, who learned through the publication that the design bore the name of Oxaca, recalled that the name of the State cannot be used and if so, because a complaint will have to be filed because the name of Oaxaca will not be used.
In recent years, the Mexican government has directed letters to clothing companies in which it is pronounced against undue cultural appropriation in textile designs of several communities of several states of the country.
In July 2023, the Government reported that it sent a letter to the Chinese fashion company Shein, in which it is pronounced against the undue cultural appropriation of several garments of the culture and identity of the Nahua people of San Gabriel Chilac, in Puebla.
The Ministry of Culture specified on that occasion that in addition to the “economic damage, there are moral damage, while they have also stripped them of their identity as a group.”
“This is a principle of ethical consideration that, locally and globally, forces us to make a call for attention and put a issue of the public discussion.
At the beginning of January 2021, Mexico asked the Australian luxury brand Zimmermann, accused of plagiarizing two textiles of the Mazateca indigenous community of Oaxaca, to work ethically and with respect to those groups.
The Australian brand offered the design of a beach dress without giving any credit to the community.
Among other plagiarism, there is also the task in 2015 by the French designer Isabel Marant towards traditional elements of the Mixe culture, also from Oaxaca.
While the firm Carolina Herrera was accused of cultural appropriation having taken elements of the Otomi culture and the crafts of the Sarape de Saltillo for its designs in 2019.
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