Mexico City, (EFE) .- The Ministry of Cultures and Arts of Oaxaca demanded the immediate suspension of the commercialization of the shoe model “Oaxaca Slip On”, launched by the Adidas sports brand and inspired by the typical huaraches of the municipality of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag, in Oaxaca.
In a statement, the agency expressed its “firm rejection in the case of cultural appropriation committed by designer Willy Chavarría and the company Adidas, who presented the model ‘Oaxaca Slip on’ without authorization or recognition of the community of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag, whose traditional huaraches were used as aesthetic base of the footwear”.
Therefore, the Secretariat asks that the marketing of the sandal be suspended, that a process of dialogue and repair of grievances with the Yalalag community is advanced, as well as the public recognition of the cultural origin of the appropriate designs.
The Secretariat said that the sandals presented on Monday “invisible the true creators of cultural heritage and reproduce historical dynamics of dispossession.”
“The adoption of cultural elements of our native peoples for commercial purposes without free, prior and informed consent constitutes a violation of their collective rights and transgresses the Federal Law for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage of Indigenous Peoples and Communities and Aphromexican communities,” the Secretariat warned in the document.
The designer Chavarría eliminated from his social networks the publications in which he was appreciated with a couple of the huaraches marketed by Adidas.
On the eve, the governor of Oaxaca, Solomon Jara Cruz, reported that a possible complaint is analyzed for the alleged cultural appropriation of Adidas.
In recent years, the Government has directed letters to different clothing companies in which it is pronounced against the undue cultural appropriation of textile designs of several communities in the country.
In July 2023, the government reported that it sent a letter to the Chinese fashion company Shein, in which it is expressed against the undue cultural appropriation of several typical garments of the culture and identity of the Nahuatl people of San Gabriel Chilac, in the state of Puebla, central Mexico.
The Federal Ministry of Culture specified – on that opportunity – that in addition to the “economic damages, there are moral damage, while they have also stripped them of their identity as a group”.
Soser context: Oaxaca analyzes possible complaint for huaraches in collaboration with Adidas
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 with traditional elements of the Mixe culture, also from Oaxaca.
While the firm Carolina Herrera was accused of cultural appropriation by taking elements of the Otomi culture and the crafts of the Sarape de Saltillo for its designs in 2019.
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