Villagers in Vaideeni at the foot of Romania’s Carpathian mountains are fuming at French luxury brand Louis Vuitton Malletier SAS for “stealing” the design of their traditional blouse.
Maria Gioanca, 69, one of two dozen women who still hand sew the black-and-white garment in the village, said she “won’t let the costume be stolen” for fancy beach wear.
Calls for luxury brands to acknowledge the inspirations of their designs have grown in the past few years, as the fashion industry has been faced with accusations of cultural appropriation and exploiting the heritage of minority groups.
Photo: AFP
In Romania, activist group La Blouse Roumaine has been asking brands since 2017 to come clean and “credit” the places of origin when their clothes are similar or inspired by Romanian folk costumes.
Dedicated to promoting the traditional “ie” blouse — known to have inspired fashion designers such as Yves Saint-Laurent, Jean Paul Gaultier and Kenzo — their complaints have yielded mixed results.
In Vaideeni, many of the seamstresses had not heard of Louis Vuitton, but noticed the similarity to their traditional “ie” blouses right away when they saw a photo of the French brand’s white linen blouse embroidered with black motifs for their new “LV by the Pool” collection.
Photo: AFP
“Why mock our stuff?” said Ioana Staniloiu, 76, scoffing at the blouse created by star designer Nicolas Ghesquiere and advertised on the Louis Vuitton Web site as “airy” and having “a fresh, bohemian look.”
“Next to our blouse, it’s ugly,” she said.
Accusing the French company of “violating the cultural rights of the communities,” La Blouse Roumaine founder Andreea Tanasescu said people felt offended that a blouse traditionally worn on special occasions is used as beach wear.
“You have to be very careful... It’s better you go and talk to the community, spend time there,” the 49-year-old former casting director said, adding that fashion could help “protect and promote cultural heritage” if there was an exchange.
The Romaniam minister of culture last month asked the company to acknowledge the heritage.
Louis Vuitton declined to comment when contacted by Agence France-Presse, but confirmed media reports that it apologized to Romania and stopped selling the blouse.
It no longer appears on the brand’s Web site, and 20 as yet unsold blouses have been put aside, according to reports.
In the past, La Blouse Roumaine convinced US designer Tory Burch to change the description of a coat crediting its Romanian inspiration. They did not get a reply from Dior in a similar case.
Romanian traditional clothes and textiles have “an exceptional, special aesthetic,” said textile specialist Florica Zaharia, pointing at the blouse’s “discretion and elegance.”
“There is a beauty that we cannot ignore,” said Zaharia, who opened the first textiles museum in Romania in 2018 after almost 30 years working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
However, critics say these controversies do not end up helping communities to save their dying crafts.
It is like “airing dirty laundry in public,” Romanian Peasant Museum curator Horatiu Ilea said, adding “the only thing” that could help is for young people to learn the crafts.
While the making of the Romanian blouse has been added to UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage in 2022, there is no patent on it, and there are different styles even among the same group of seamstresses. In Vaideeni, some women have recently taken up the craft they learned from their elders, but it is far from easy.
It takes at least a month to sew a blouse selling for about 300 euros to 400 euros (US$328 to US$437), and they do not exactly sell like hot cakes.
“I’m a bit scared [about the future], but we won’t give up here,” said Staniloiu, whose daughter and four granddaughters have all left the village to look for work elsewhere.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his