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Notebook: Navajo Nation files suit to protect its trademarks

Thursday, March 15, 2012

"Lesbian chic, Goth chic, rocker chic, Masai chic, androgynous chic, biker chic, punk chic, minimalist chic: fashion is culture’s Godzilla, devouring everything in its path. Half the time, the monster doesn’t know what it ate.

Most recently it gobbled up the complex Navajo tribal culture, which then, semidigested, turned up on runways, in stores, online and finally in the news, as last week the people who unwittingly provided inspiration for Navajo chic took legal issue with a process of cultural appropriation that American Indians know perhaps too well.

“We are very proud of our name, Navajo,” said Ben Shelly, Navajo Nation president, referring to a civil legal action begun in late February by the country’s largest Indian tribe to stop Urban Outfitters and its subsidiaries from misappropriating the Navajo trademark and name.

“To be used in this kind of fashion, I’m very unhappy with it,” Mr. Shelly said in a public statement, referring to 20 or so items — some by now renamed or removed from circulation by the mass market retailer — apparently inspired by one of the more unpredictable fashion trends of recent years."

Get the Story:
An Uneasy Cultural Exchange (The New York Times 3/15)