Valerie Steele

In recent years, the issue of “decolonizing” museum collections has become increasingly important for museum directors and curators. Many museums prominently feature masterpieces derived from global imperial plunder, and a number of countries have long demanded their return. With a few exceptions, such as Montezuma’s crown, these tend not to be items of dress. However, the concept of decolonizing the museum goes beyond the actual theft of objects during periods of overt western imperialism. Museums conserve cultural objects, and also educate the public about these objects. Yet, in western museums, the voices of those whose lands and treasures were stolen are usually silenced. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of diversity within museums. As Lonnie Burch put it: “The museum field is awash in whiteness.” Museums with fashion collections also need to deconstructing the concept of “fashion” itself. When is an object worn on the body accessioned into a museum collection as “fashion”? -- and when is it listed as “dress”? When African objects are routinely accessioned as “dress” rather than “fashion,” is this the result of “persistent colonial frameworks? Should non-western objects be “reframed, reimagined and restaged” as fashion, in the process enlarging “the canon of fashion.” Fashion curators and historians are increasingly trying to decolonize or decenter the canon. Rather than just focusing on Euro-American figures like Chanel and Dior, which reinforce a white and western hegemonic narrative, they are trying include examples of fashion by so-called BIPOC designers, i.e. Black, Indigenous, “people of color” designers. “Decolonization is acknowledging and addressing all of the systemic barriers that were created through the legacy of colonialism and imperialism,” says Kim Jenkins, founder of the Race and Fashion Database.