Style: Inspired or down right theft?

Designer Matthew Williamson
at his Spring/Summer 2008 show

Fashion is often praised for its creativity and introducing something new to the mix; thus, all the hoopla around fashion weeks and shows. This might be  sooooo 2000 and 8 but still worth talking about: Designer Matthew Williamson and the controversy surrounding his Spring/Summer 2008 collection.


The London based famed British designer and his works are popular among celebrities and who is who in fashion. With a big name like that, there is of course a constant pressure to bring something new to the table and do an exquisite show come every season. So how does one stay relevant in this dog eat dog industry? Well, according to Mr. Williamson's action on his Spring/Summer 2008 show: get two blond long legged fresh face models, two dresses straight from an Ethiopian traditional store and let the model strut their way down the runway as if you lost sleep days trying to design the pieces yourself.


Fashion often draws inspiration and gets influences by various cultural and social latitudes. However, misrepresenting the art just because most of the audience in your show room are not familiar with the traditional attire of a certain third world country takes away all the integrity out of your work.

The two pieces in Spring/Summer 2008 Matthew Williamson
collection which are of  Ethiopian national attires

As an Ethiopian, I totally understand the anger among Ethiopians over these two pieces. They looked like they were taken from a mannequin off of a traditional attire stores in Addis Abeba and put on the runway. For those who may be wondering why this is such a big deal, traditional cloths have a huge significance in Ethiopian culture. While in the rural part of Ethiopia they are considered an every day cloths, for the majority of the population they mark special, joyous and/or sacred events. Most people get decked out in their traditional cloths for national holidays or to go to church. There is always that certain regal elegance associated with putting on a traditional attire. I am pretty sure as much as we all love our mothers' cloths being worn by foreigners, we hate the idea of some foreigner making a profit off of them as if they were his creations.  

According to some sources those dress are retailed at almost $1200 (current rate).  Those same exact dresses if you   pay a visit to Shiro Meda (a one stop market for anything and everything traditional in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia) would probably cost you less than 300 Ethiopian birr ( less than $20).  May be, oh may be... if Mr. Williams had a decency to acknowledge the source, he probably wouldn't have outraged so many Ethiopians. Or even better yet,  if he had played around with the fabric and/or design as most designers do with 'African' prints (given the proper credit), that probably would have settled well with most Ethiopians who were upset with this. 

So I say this was a form of plagiarism .... what do you say?