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Stella McCartney’s Ankara Prints on Spring Runway Set Off Debate Over African Origins

Posted byBy Kiersten Willis | Published on: CommentsComments (0)

Another fashion week calls for another bout of cultural appropriation accusations. This time, Director/photographer Amarachi Nwosu called out Stella McCartney’s Paris Fashion Week design for stealing African Ankara print. To add insult to injury, Nwosu pointed out the spring 2018 collection featured only one Black model on the runway.

Ankara is an all-cotton fabric found in various designs. It is known by various names, including African wax prints, Dutch prints and Holland prints, according to All Things Ankara. The website says the designs are created using batik, an Indonesian technique that creates patterns by prohibiting the wax from covering the whole fabric. All this has led to some debate about whether or not McCartney’s use of Ankara is actually cultural appropriation.

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Still, many were fired up over McCartney’s ready-to-wear collection.

Others straight up clowned the designs.

This isn’t the first time McCartney has spurred similar criticism. Nigerians were angered over the fashion designer’s photo collaboration with a Nigerian-Jamaican photographer in May. To many, it simply reinforced stereotypical ideas of the country.

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