BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania’s culture minister said she will ask French luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton to acknowledge that the traditional Romanian blouse directly inspired one of the items in its 2024 collection.
“We would like to request that Louis Vuitton recognises the heritage and cultural value of the traditional blouse model with ribbons,” Raluca Turcan wrote on Facebook late Monday. She added that this is an opportunity to get international recognition for the “priceless value” of the Romanian tradition.
The blouse in question, known as “IE” in Romanian, usually features intricate embroidery and tassels and is widely recognized as a symbol of the country’s rich folk culture. In 2022, garments with a distinctive style of embroidery were added to UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage.
Louis Vuitton did not immediately respond to questions sent by The Associated Press.
The garments that reportedly inspired the look were in Nicolas Ghesquiere’s Resort 2024 collection for Louis Vuitton, where many items cost thousands of dollars.
The campaign for Louis Vuitton to “give credit” to Romanian heritage was launched on Sunday by online community La Blouse Roumain, which has long urged fashion houses to give credit to collections that appropriate traditional clothing.
“We need to protect our intangible cultural heritage. It’s our cultural right to express our identity through these clothes, these traditional costumes,” said Andreea Diana Tanasescu, founder of La Blouse Roumain. “They are part of Romanian history.”
This is not the first time such protests have taken place in Romania. In 2017, American designer Tory Burch changed the details of one of her designs, a traditional Romanian-style coat, after her brand offended thousands of Romanians by marketing it as an African-inspired garment. Burch said they had “forgotten the reference to a beautiful Romanian coat that inspired one of the pieces.”
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