UK fashion house pulls copied Inuit design: here’s the full apology – CBC
November 27, 2015
Fashion designers KTZ have apologized to the Inuit great-granddaughter of a shaman whose design they copied.
On Wednesday, Salome Awa, who is also a producer at CBC North, told us that the sweater being sold by KTZ for over $900 was a copy of her ancestor’s sacred parka. Until this week, the garment was also sold at stores here in Canada.
This week’s controversy is not the first time KTZ has been criticized for using indigenous designs. The company claims their patterns “capture the beauty, truth and power behind indigenous things,” acting as a tribute rather than an appropriation of the designs.
“This is a stolen piece. There is no way that this fashion designer could have thought of this exact duplicate by himself,” Awa says.
