The West is dead and I'm stealing its clothes

So… does “Western” fashion really exist? I think we can all agree that the West is less a real place and more a bunch of shifting ideologies and politics at any point in time. It’s not exactly something you can point to on a map. Or if it is, it varies depending who you ask. With that in mind, should we let a fiction determine who gets to own what? Does it make sense to label things like suits, t-shirts or jeans examples of Western fashion when there are few, if any, European hands involved in their production and design? Most of the world’s clothes are farmed, woven, cut and sewn in the “Global South” - shouldn’t we be able to claim ownership too? Or is this just cope? Become a Patron: https://patreon.com/khensani?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink Leave a tip: https://buymeacoffee.com/khensani Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/okbaddiek/ Sources consulted / extra reading: [1] ‘What Is Western Civilization?’ by Lawrence Birken (1992) https://www.jstor.org/stable/494353?searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default%3A03b0b3ca27a607baefdec15163bd7b40&initiator=recommender [2] ‘being black vs being human: a video essay’ by Godesulloh Bawa (2026) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=949ekC72xoU&t=1010s [3] ‘Fashion and the Phantasmagoria of Modernity: An Introduction to Decolonial Fashion Discourse’ by Angela M. Jansen (2020) https://www.academia.edu/43818248/Fashion_and_the_Phan