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Braden Fastier / Stuff
Dame Trelise Cooper has declined to comment on the name of a sundress called “Trail of Tiers” (File photo).
Fashion designer Dame Trelise Cooper is coming under fire for a new dress design called “Trail of Tiers.”
The $ 299 sundress, which has been removed from her website, has sparked ire on the social media platform Twitter.
The name of the dress is similar to Trail of Tears: the forcible relocation of some 46,000 Native Americans between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government.
The trail is over 8000 kilometers long and saw Native Americans driven off their lands on foot and forced to cross the Mississippi River into what was called “Indian Territory.”
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Thousands died on the trip.
Professor Joanna Kidman from Victoria University of Wellington said she found Cooper’s website and the dress and found the name “very jarring.”
“I couldn’t believe what I was actually seeing.”
Kidman used Twitter to express his thoughts.
She said Things felt that the name of the dress was the “height of total insensitivity.”
“It is very difficult for me to understand how anyone could consider a floral polyester dress as an appropriate statement about one of the most embarrassing episodes in American colonial history.”
Kidman, a sociologist affiliated with Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Raukawa, said that the name of the dress was a cultural appropriation of indigenous history.
“People still live with the impact of this story,” he said.
Screenshot / One Rundle Trading Co.
Trelise Cooper’s ‘Trail of Tiers’ dress was still available on other clothing websites around 11am on December 10.
“What this reflects to me is the lack of attention and empathy for the damage that has been caused and continues to cause in the present.”
Kidman said she wanted to know if Cooper or his company knew that the name of the dress was a play on words.
He also wanted to know if someone in the company was checking the brand.
Those questions were asked of Cooper, but she declined to comment on the record on the name of the dress.
Screenshot
A screenshot from the website of the ‘Trail of Tears’ dress, which has been removed since Stuff contacted Trelise Cooper.
“Things it’s just after a clickbait title. You are so terrible to me, ”he said.
“It’s being a tabloid clickbait.”
Kidman also said it would be great if Cooper donated all proceeds from the sale of her “Trail of Tiers” dress to the Navajo Nation and Hopi Nation reservations in the United States that are battling the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said it was a shame Cooper refused to comment as he really wanted to know where the fashion designer came from.
Screenshot / Tea Lily
The ‘Trail of Tiers’ dress could also be seen at Tea Lily around 11am on December 10.
The Race Relations Commissioner has been contacted for comment.
The president and president-elect of the Association for Indian and Native American Studies have also been contacted for comment.
The dress can still be seen on other clothing websites.
It is not the first time that Cooper has been criticized for cultural references.
In 2014, he apologized for any wrongdoing caused by wearing models on a runway wearing a Native American headdress.
And in 2011, ten of their models had the skin around their eyes stretched back with transparent tape to create an “Asian” look, further exaggerated by the spectacular eye makeup during their Fashion Week show.
