Cultural appropriation in the digital context: A comparative study between two fashion cases

Abstract

The following investigation presents the definitions of cultural heritage, cultural appropriation, corporate reputation to later evaluate how could Cultural Appropriation infringement could be detrimental to a company’s corporate reputation in the digital context. Two cases of cultural appropriation crisis in the fashion industry are analyzed. On the one hand, the crisis faced by Carolina Herrera due to the similarities of the firm’s Resort 2020 collection and different cultural elements from communities in Mexico, and on the other hand, the crisis faced by Gucci with a blackface accusation in 2019. The paper leads us to conclude that nowadays cultural appropriation in fashion can lead to a reputational crisis because the different stakeholders of a company in the industry are evolving and demanding from them to be more aware of controversial issues, among those, the misrepresentation of a culture. Also, how digital communication arises new questions for this kind of crisis. Evaluating two of the most recent cases of cultural appropriation helps to shed light on the importance of these issues in the current world.