Rihanna has gotten into trouble after non-black models in her latest Savage X Fenty fashion show emerged wearing their hair in braids. This has been termed as cultural appropriation and it has sparked a lot of debate online.
The show had the likes of Vanessa Hudgens and Emily Ratajkowski wearing their hair in braids which are traditionally worn by black women. This did not sit well with many people and some went on to rant about it on their different social media accounts.
Television writer, Raina Morris had this to say, “I wish I could write something funny as putting all these white girls in braids for the Fenty show.” St Clair Detrick-Jules, the author of My Beautiful Black Hair noted, “For the producers of Rihanna’s fashion show to fashion white models with distinctively black braids kind of feels exhausting. We’ve been making some headway with educating non-Black women about how deep our connections are to our hair yet here come the producer willfully ignoring all the easily accessible information online explaining what cultural appropriation is and why it’s harmful”.
This is not the first time Rihanna is getting in trouble for cultural appropriation during her Savage X Fenty fashion shows. The singer once apologized for using the track ‘Doom’ by Coucou Chloe that used the vocal samples of an Islamic hadith. Addressing the offended Muslim community, the singer wrote in her instagram account, “I would, more importantly, like to apologize for this honest yet careless mistake. We understand that we hurt many of our Muslim brothers and sisters, and I’m incredibly disheartened by this.” Rihanna is yet to respond to the ongoing criticism.