# Who thought this dress ("African" black women) modeled by a blonde made sense? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 12, 2020, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603 "2020-04-12T03:57:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/1 "2020-04-12T03:57:30Z")
I don’t use ad blockers because I’m often amused by the ads that go by on various sites I frequent. For example, [take this dress.](https://imgur.com/a/az7eBoT) Did it not occur to the people putting the advertisement together that a white lady wearing a dress showing somebody’s idea of ethnic African women might be a little … awkward … in this day and age? Apparently not. I eagerly await the dress, modeled by a black woman, covered in Junior League types sipping tea. Or doing whatever it is that we white women do when we’re at our most iconic. Yeesh. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/2 "2020-04-12T04:05:02Z")
“Made sense”+fashion= does not compute. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/3 "2020-04-12T04:09:01Z")
She is gonna die of melanoma. Forget about it. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/4 "2020-04-12T07:09:50Z")
Why are you assuming the model is white? Just because she has blonde hair? ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/5 "2020-04-12T07:24:50Z")
That doesn’t look like a professional photo. It’s a woman in her living room taking a selfie. There’s a lot of visual clutter in the shot, she’s wearing a big distracting pink watch, her nails aren’t fashion-model perfect. . . The ad was most likely by an individual running a small business, not by a company that had hired an ad agency. It could be a woman selling clothing that she models herself. If that’s the case, I don’t see anything wrong with the picture. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/6 "2020-04-12T12:00:46Z")
It’s inauthentic. The print pattern shows “African” women in short mini-skirts’ No self-respecting woman in Africa would show her knees, and in conservative areas, skirts cover all the way to the ankles. Nor would she use such reprentations on a dress, even if the dres itself is of proper length. This dress is strictly to be worn in London or New York, by whoever happens to live there. My wife has a dress with an Indian elephant print. Nobody says “But you;re not Indian”. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/7 "2020-04-12T12:43:37Z")
Cultural appropriation is a big concern among the woke set. Don’t be a white woman [selling tortillas in Portland.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/portland-burrito-cart-closes-after-owners-are-accused-of-cultural-appropriation_n_5926ef7ee4b062f96a348181?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKmy6sCYK5CXNobQ-IaiK1i9LBgsopA3a8jw1a4mQkhDs6ai5r1lxmTEBkFrIcbyF3hQSDqifC6I4QB6nsXty2p1_pS0pkWShpD3HHFVjzU314I8JJ-EMyDB86x-7gOPAMxqH1DSHP8G4CqzmlUTCA4ZOM4rscEmgVsO5X01s1XF) I doubt any African culture actually features pictures of women in multi-colored dresses on their clothing, but you can’t be too careful. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/8 "2020-04-12T13:06:14Z")
I thought at first that you were talking about a white woman modeling a dress in an African style. That wouldn’t be a problem, I think: African styles are much more interesting than the generic modern First World ones. No, to be clear, the dress actually has pictures of (purportedly) African women on it. It seems an odd stylistic choice for _anyone_ to wear. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/9 "2020-04-12T13:09:35Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > My wife has a dress with an Indian elephant print. Nobody says “But you;re not Indian”. If you can’t think of any difference between elephants and African women, this probably seems like a good analogy. ---
**Author:** ![MrLee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f8ce5/32.png) [@MrLee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrLee)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/10 "2020-04-12T13:13:28Z")
I wonder what actual rural African women (as depicted) would make of such a dress, and the fact that Western women would choose to wear one? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/11 "2020-04-12T13:26:57Z")
Africa is a big, if you haven’t noticed. You can’t really make broad generalizations about what “African” women would wear one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/12 "2020-04-12T14:25:18Z")
I dunno. My gf has purchased dresses in the Caribbean from artists/seamstresses who depict Caribbean life on fabric and offer their art to customers of all races. She’s worn these dresses to drink/dance/celebrate in the US as well as the Caribbean. She’s white as can be. Nobody has ever expressed concern, many have asked where she got the dress. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/13 "2020-04-12T17:38:06Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Africa is a big, if you haven’t noticed. You can’t really make broad generalizations about what “African” women would wear one way or the other. Absolutely, which is why I put “African” in quotes. (FTR, I lived in Africa - Mozambique, to be precise - in the late 1990s. So I’m not utterly clueless about the continent.) I don’t find the pattern offensive, exactly - I’ve got some dishes painted by Mozambican women that aren’t entirely dissimilar in motif - but I do find it an extremely odd choice, one that is almost certainly better avoided. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/14 "2020-04-12T19:48:32Z")
I have owned several shirts with repeated images of Polynesian or Hawai’ian women printed on them and no one has yet called me out for cultural appropriations. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/15 "2020-04-12T20:35:00Z")
The dress reminds me of a lot of Afrocentric art I’ve seen, [like this](https://www.amazon.com/Vipsung-American-Afrocentric-Carrying-BrownShower/dp/B073XL1WCH?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_13). Most American Afrocentric art isn’t to my taste. I find a lot of it to be kitschy. But there is a market for it, and if you can put it on a shower curtain, then why not a dress? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/16 "2020-04-12T23:22:30Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > I have owned several shirts with repeated images of Polynesian or Hawai’ian women printed on them and no one has yet called me out for cultural appropriations. I think call-out culture is magnificently exaggerated. It’s very possible to do pretty offensive things and not have anyone tell you they’re offensive. Not saying your shirt is, I haven’t seen it. But just as people go through life with terrible breath or lousy table manners or creepy attitudes toward women without anyone telling them, some folks engage in pretty cringy cultural appropriate without being told. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/17 "2020-04-12T23:59:00Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > The dress reminds me of a lot of Afrocentric art I’ve seen, [like this](https://www.amazon.com/Vipsung-American-Afrocentric-Carrying-BrownShower/dp/B073XL1WCH?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_13). No wonder it reminds you of it. The pattern is nearly identical, with some minor differences in color. The woman is actually wearing a shower curtain! ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/18 "2020-04-13T00:35:58Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > No wonder it reminds you of it. The pattern is nearly identical, with some minor differences in color. The woman is actually wearing a shower curtain! The fabric on the dress has a much smaller print. Similar, but different. StG ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/19 "2020-04-13T03:34:09Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > I have owned several shirts with repeated images of Polynesian or Hawai’ian women printed on them and no one has yet called me out for cultural appropriations. Aloha wear is a complex topic in its own right, and the issues may overlap some but are largely different. The African motifs worn by a white lady raise issues of black-white history that aloha wear does not. And depending on your particular clothing, there’s also a question of whether there’s any objectification of women going on. In fact, a lot of “Hawaiian” clothing doesn’t involve chesty women. (Do a GIS on “Reyn Spooner” for typical examples.) I’ve actually spent a bit of time recently thinking about white people wearing aloha wear, because the student council at my son’s school (Haverford College) got on their high horses a few months ago and decided that “Hawaiian shirts” were cultural appropriation and not to be allowed. Never mind that they got the language a bit off (should be aloha, not Hawaiian) and as they themselves noted, no native Hawaiians were involved in the declaration. Since I live in Hawai’i, I made it a point to discuss the matter with some native Hawaiians, who thought the whole thing was absurd. The most common first response being, “but aloha wear isn’t a native Hawaiian tradition anyway, so how can it be appropriated from us if non-Hawaiians wear it?” To a person, no one felt that the adoption of aloha wear by the many ethnic groups that inhabit the Hawaiian islands was offensive. That’s the beginning of a digression I’ll stop following now. But it’s all quite interesting. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603/20 "2020-04-13T04:36:39Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If you can’t think of any difference between elephants and African women, this probably seems like a good analogy. People were supposed to notice that I said Indian elephants as an Indian motif. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-thought-this-dress-african-black-women-modeled-by-a-blonde-made-sense/851603.md?page=2)