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The foreigners laugh as the elderly Indigenous woman raises her arms and sways back and forth to a 1960s pop melody, while a professional photographer begins snapping photos. Now, video of the photo shoot for a French fashion label has sparked widespread indignation and a sharp rebuke from the Mexican government.To get more news about 国产成人精品男人的天堂, you can visit our official website.

The blow-up involving Sézane, a clothing line founded in Paris in 2013, is the latest chapter in a longstanding debate around cultural appropriation and racism in the fashion industry. Top brands have been publicly shamed for being predatory at worst and culturally insensitive at best.The controversy arose after a team from Sézane staged a photo shoot with an elderly Indigenous woman in the Zapotec community of Teotitlán del Valle, in the state of Oaxaca, on January 7. The woman, Guillermina Gutiérrez, is wearing a green sweater from Sézane and sitting against a staged backdrop.

A woman from the French crew stands up and starts dancing with Gutiérrez to the 1968 Mary Hopkin song Those Were The Days. The woman then steps aside and encourages Gutiérrez to keep moving, prompting smiles, peels of laughter and words of encouragement.

But one onlooker was outraged: A Oaxacan resident who’d been hired by Sézane to help with its shoots, and recorded video of the scene. The company arrived in Mexico in early January with a team of around 20 people, including models, photographers and videographers, said Kandy Mijangos, another Oaxacan hired to work with the crew. The photo shoot in Teotitlán, famous for its weaving, happened three days into a planned nine-day shoot in various regions of the state, according to a “mood board” the company put together outlining its vision for the publicity campaign. The board features models eating mangoes on the street, lounging in upscale hotels, and posing in front of marigolds.

Those plans evaporated after the person who filmed the elderly woman being cajoled into dancing shared the footage with Mijangos, who in turn shared it with Manuela Cortés, a textile artist and art curator. Cortés posted the video on her Instagram account with the comment, “Indigenous cultures treated like a display cabinet to pick and choose from. No respect. No morals.”

The video quickly racked up thousands of views and angry comments directed at the company, which advertises “luxury quality at a fair & accessible price” and promises “engagement in the community.” Most of its clothes sell in the $100 - $300 range. The person who shot the video declined to speak with VICE World News.

 

Mexico’s National Institute of Indigenous People, a governmental agency, said Sézane’s actions reinforce “racist stereotypes” and called on “private brands and companies to stop exploiting Indigenous and Afro-Mexican people and communities as cultural capital.” They are not objects to sell clothing, the institute said, but citizens “possessing a vast cultural heritage and traditional knowledge.”