An interview with Dillan Patel in response to Cross culture and gender fluidity in Fashion

During Kelly’s MA course, each student chose a topic and title to focus on for their dissertation and she chose to focus on How can a brand positively reflect cross-cultural identities for a multi-heritage consumer?

Here is the second interview with Dillan, his responses on gender fluidity and multi-heritage.

Give a brief description about yourself.  

A: I’m a 26 year old, Professional hairstylist from south east London. I have a Mauritian & Indian background.  

image: screenshot of Dillan’s clients and work at his Salon based in Brixton. - Texture Salon London

Q: what does cultural appropriation mean to you?  

A: when it comes to cultural appropriation i feel like as long as people are being respectful towards other people’s culture when they are doing something that is outside of their culture it shows appreciation. When people outside of a certain culture, are mocking people or using certain aspects of culture to benefit them, for example, food, fashion, traditions etc. I dont agree with.  

Q: could you give an example of brands or companies that have represented cultural appropriation in a negative way.  

A: Gucci, when they made a black knitted turtle neck sweater that had a mouth cut out with two red panels that looked like exaggerated lips. This is more racist than cultural appropriation id say.  

Gucci, again using the sikh turbans on white models.  

Chanel, when they made a ‘urban tie cap’ and put it on white models which was actually durag.  

image: photograph taken of Dillan in Mauritius

Q: do you think fashion brands could positively represent cultural influences in a positive way?

A: 100%. Just stop stealing things from other peoples cultures, rebranding what they’re actually called and thinking its okay to put on the runway because its ‘fashion’. It’s disrespectful.  Q: how would you describe your culture & what does it mean to you to be cross culture/ dual heritage?  

A: id say growing up having mixed cultures was very difficult because i was accepted into one more than the other because of the way i looked. My indian family members always looked at me differently because my hair didnt look anything like theirs & im gay. My Mauritian family members always had the most welcoming energy so i automatically became closer to them. Having said that i still love both cultures, being Mauritian in itself is the definition of multicultural, our ancestors were bought to that island from many places in south Asia, east Asia & many parts of Africa. I think what i like about Indian culture is the family/religious traditions they have.  

Q: Has social media made a big impact with the way we represent our cultural heritage to express our identities? 

A: definitely, i think social media has been a great thing for learning a lot of things from loads of different people from different backgrounds & countries. However, there is still a huge amount of ignorance in the world specifically in the USA when it comes to any other culture in the world apart from their own. I feel like if people are curious or have lack of knowledge about a certain cultures they should ask someone from that culture to explain rather than come up with their own assumptions.  

image: taken in Mauritius to celebrate Dillan’s 26th birthday

 Q: how would you describe or express yourself through cultural appropriation? (do you think what you wear expresses your identity?) 

A: yes, fortunately being from quite a mixed background where there is a lot of African & Asian culture i specifically like to show my Mauritian culture more when it comes to expressing myself. There are a huge amount of people who don’t know much at all about Mauritius and its culture so i like educate people on social media through showing music, food, traditional dances etc.