Mexico has criticized mega fashion retailers for cultural change | Social and Cultural Affairs

Mexico says Zara, Anthropologie and Patowl have all used different methods and cultures in Mexico and have asked each nation to comment publicly on what they can sell all their products.

Mexico has criticized international fashion designers Zara, Anthropologie, and Patowl for their traditional practices, claiming that they use Mexican traditional ethnic groups in their designs without any benefit to the region.

Mexico’s Ministry of Culture also said in a statement that it had sent a letter from Mexico’s Ministry of Culture Alejandra Frausto to all three international companies, asking everyone to “publicly comment on what would sell their products”.

The Ministry of Culture said Zara, an Inditex, a global clothing retailer, used a different brand from the Indigenous Mixteca group in San Juan Colorado in the southern state of Oaxaca.

“The designs in question have not been deliberately adapted or influenced by the ingenuity of the Mexican Mixtec people,” Inditex said in a statement sent to Reuters news agency.

Anthropologie, of the URBN, used a design developed by the Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec natural group, while the Patowl took a photograph from the Zapoteco group at San Antonino Castillo Velasco, both in Oaxaca, according to the Ministry of Culture.

URBN and Patowl did not respond promptly to the request for comment.

How fashion designers have benefited from the integration of traditions without acknowledging their origins or fairly reclaiming territories has been controversial in recent years.

In 2019, the Mexican government criticized the fashion house Carolina Herrera for giving traditional Mexican colors and fabrics to the collection.

Carolina Herrera’s parent company, Puig, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2019, Herrera production manager Wes Gordon says the conference “pays homage to the richness of Mexican culture”.