Gwen Stefani Addresses Cultural Appropriation Claims About Her Parading With The ‘Harajuku Girls’
Gwen Stefani has faced cultural appropriation claims for years, and now she’s doubling down on her reasons for previously parading around with the group of Japanese-American women she referred to as the “Harajuku Girls.” While speaking with Paper Magazine, the 51-year-old “Hollaback Girl” singer defended herself against long-standing claims of her “offensive” and “appropriating” use of Japanese street fashion and backup dancers on stage and in media appearances.
Stefani says, “If we didn’t buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn’t have so much beauty, you know? We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more.” In addition to her new ethnic entourage, Stefani also began wearing fashion inspired by the colorful and unique-looking styles popularized in Tokyo’s Harajuku district. She also created a fashion brand to sell Japanese stylized items.
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To Stefani, she was only paying respect to the culture that inspired her after touring in Japan in the ’90s. She says, “I never got to have dancers with No Doubt. I never got to change costumes. I never got to do all of those fun girl things that I always love to do. So I had this idea that I would have a posse of girls — because I never got to hang with girls — and they would be Japanese, Harajuku girls, because those are the girls that I love. Those are my homies. That’s where I would be if I had my dream come true, I could go live there and I could go hang out in Harajuku.” However, that doesn’t sit well with comedian Margaret Cho, who previously likened her Japanese schoolgirl uniforms to non-Blacks wearing blackface.
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