Reformation's Devon Lee Carlson Collab Sparks Cultural Appropriation Allegations

Reformation, a fashion brand known as a favorite among celebrities, released a collection of 20 items last week in collaboration with the influencer and entrepreneur Devon Lee Carlson. The line seemed to fit perfectly in this sartorial moment: there's butter yellow, there are vintage prints, there are skinny neck scarves.
But a breezy three-piece outfit from the collection — a baby blue midi skirt and a flowy camisole topped off with a long, thin scarf — has landed the brand at the center of a familiar debate: Where is the line between influence and cultural appropriation? Because, as many have pointed out online, the combination of pieces, which costs a total of roughly $400, looks a lot like a South Asian lehenga.
On Instagram, many of the comments on a Reformation post about the collaboration focus on appropriation, with one criticizing the look for being 'straight up South Asian' without acknowledging the culture that inspired it. In a TikTok video that has garnered more than 16,000 likes, Sai Ananda, an actress in Manhattan, does a side-by-side comparison, showing a still from an early 2000s Bollywood movie in which an actress is wearing a lehenga that, she notes, has 'a lot of similarities' to Reformation's outfit.
'I'm pretty sure if I dig deep enough, I can find pictures of me and my friends from back in the early 2000s wearing something very similar on a playground at the temple,' Ms. Ananda said in a phone interview. 'It's completely fine to be inspired by different cultures but I think there's a level of respect that is required so you're not erasing the cultural background.'
In an interview with Forbes, Ms. Carlson, who wore a pink version of the outfit to the collaboration's launch party in March, said the collection consists of riffs on items from her personal closet. That particular outfit, she said, was her take on a vintage dress by the British designer John Galliano that she received from her boyfriend's mother. 'It's one of the few pieces in my closet that is too precious to share so I worked with Ref to design a two piece set inspired by it.'
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