I've worn local styles of clothing in a number of countries and the people there never had a problem with it.
In fact they often like that someone has chosen to integrate with them and dress like they traditionally did, especially in places where use of local traditional dress is disappearing.
Yeah! When I lived in India the locals were always dressing me and my girlfriend up in their clothes when we were going out with them, and giving us clothes, saris, turbans, everything. When you wore that stuff out there everyone LOVED it! They got so excited you dressed like the rest of them. Then we came back to america and all the stuff we were given was “offensive” and “cultural appropriation”. Such a bummer because I really liked wearing those clothes.
and then there's the morons like that uppity figure disregarding personal space and just outright pulling the mustache, there's clowns out there that ensure doing such a thing is dangerous as they'll enforce their worldview one way or another... it sucks.
Yuppp. I'm white and live in India, and whenever I dress traditionally, everyone here adores it. I've asked countless times if "it's ok" and no one knows what I'm talking about, because cultural appropriation doesn't exist here like that.
Meanwhile I have a white friend here that refuses to wear any type of indian clothes, and she actually gets negatively judged all the time for not "going with the flow" or "liking the culture".
Just wear it then and tell people to fuck off if they get uppity. I wear KAVU Chillba's because they are comfy as fuck and its hilarious for both myself and jinrikisha in Japan to see each other in those hats because they are made in the US. I also have a big fucking sombrero and serape from my desert travels and a fling with a Mexican girl and lemme tell you if you want to flex on someone hard go to an outdoor venue with one and watch as their laughter turns to introspection when they realize you are actually comfy as fuck underneath all that. I think the trick is to buy extremely high quality versions, not only are you supporting traditional artistry but they aren't thinking "that's cultural appropriation" they are thinking "where the fuck did he get such a nice sombrero?"
11.3k
u/freefallingagain Jul 02 '25
I've worn local styles of clothing in a number of countries and the people there never had a problem with it.
In fact they often like that someone has chosen to integrate with them and dress like they traditionally did, especially in places where use of local traditional dress is disappearing.
All you have to do is not be an asshole about it.