This last March 26th, a new collection from Reserva dropped, marketed as “Arigatô”, and as the name suggests, the whole attire was inspired by the Japanese culture as a salutation. Although the collection was fully inspired by the culture, there were no Asians modeling in the website photos whatsoever, and it was only possible to see them in the background of the popularly Japanese occupied neighborhood of Liberdade, in São Paulo.
Reserva is a Brazilian brand of clothing that is popular for carrying a carioca spirit of life and designs mostly for men, since the mid-2000s. Recently, in 2021, the stamp has announced that they would enter the feminine fashion world. When they did so and launched Reversa, it was well received by the consumers, marking the winter of 2022.
This scenario perpetuates the talk about cultural appropriation and racism, once the collection, which should celebrate the culture and its participants, excludes them of their own homage and only reinforces stereotypical beliefs. According to Dora Arai, a Brazilian-Japanese student participant in the collective Asian group in Fundação Cásper Líbero, the biggest mistake in the collection was the publicity part, “they wanted to make the whole collection to homage Japan, and the most important part it is to divulge it with Asians”.
She later says that “The intention behind it could have been good, but the execution was not great.” She adds that if the whole production were made with Japanese-descendants, the result could have been beneficial for the brand “I don’t think like, an homage, you know? But if it was made by Asians, it would have made much more sense […] and it could have turned out a really good job.”
The case circled the local web at the end week of March, bringing up all kinds of opinions, the majority of those were against the collection and what it brings to the table.
Some of the people commented about the fact that the elements used to praise the culture were extremely stereotypical, dragons and sushi prints, for an example. And like Bruna Tukamoto, a Brazilian-Japanese, content creator posted on Twitter “The ‘salutation to Japan’ of Reserva is to make profit out of our culture and keep feeding our invisibility”
She continued to say that “In addition to the name of the “Arigatô” collection, the phrase that we, Brazilian-Japanese, listen to the most during our lives coming from people we DON’T know and that reinforces the idea of foreignness about us”, explains Bruna.
This was not the first or only polemic that the brand has been involved in. Cases about racism and sexism are some other examples of it, but they have seemed to manage them well, exciting the memory of the consumers. As a response from the allegations in this particular case, the brand changed the name of the collection from “Arigatô: a salutation to Japan” to simply “Winter 2023”, “Leather” and “Jeans”. Another change was the use of an Asian model, but a formal allegation was not made so far.
Dora ends up saying that, if it is possible to compare, if the collection is Japanese, African, or indigenous, it is always made on a stereotypical note “But then, the first thing that comes to my mind it’s, is there people inside the production that are descendants of those ethnicities?”
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The article above was edited by Fernanda Miki Tsukase.
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