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On social networks, the photo shoot turned into a lynching for the French ready-to-wear brand Sézane. The video of the shoot released in early January on Instagram seemed good-natured: we see Guillermina Gutiérrez posing in a street in Teotitlán del Valle, an indigenous town in southwestern Mexico.
This middle-aged Zapotec woman wears a green cardigan from the Parisian brand’s latest collection that flashes with the blue of her traditional outfit. An assistant to the photographer invites him to sketch dance steps on the song flower time, by Dalida. The scene has angered Internet users and the Mexican government, who denounce “exploitation” of the image of indigenous peoples.
Demons of a colonial past
The soap opera could have stuck to this episode. But, immediately, the video awakens the demons of a colonial past of “looting”. “Original cultures treated as a showcase (…) without respect, without ethics”, castigates, January 8, on his Instagram accountMexican stylist Manuela “Bupu” Cortés, who revealed this video, for which Guillermina Gutiérrez received no compensation.
Since then, on social networks, invectives abound against Sézane: “Cultural Appropriation” “colonialist surge”, “suprematism”… In the aftermath, the Mexican Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) stepped up to the plate. “These acts reinforce racist stereotypes,” denounces his statement, threatening to sue. As for the Ministry of Culture, it accuses the brand of “manipulate, use and exhibit elderly people of the original peoples in the context of its advertising”.
The “deep apologies” expressed by the founder of the claw, Morgane Sezalory, explaining that it was not a video for commercial purposes, do nothing about it. “I realize today that I did not have the knowledge to behave as I should have,” she wrote in a private message addressed to Bupu Cortés, immediately shared on the Internet.
Sézane’s Instagram account is overwhelmed with comments from French customers demanding explanations. In Paris, as in Mexico, the case snowballed. To the point that the brand is obliged to justify itself in the French press: “These photos were intended solely for the designer’s company journal. »
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