The Secular Sweater Caught in The Middle of a Cultural Appropriation Scandal
How ironic that one of the biggest colonizer nations is claiming cultural appropriation over something
Last week, I woke up to an uncanny trending topic on Twitter: an American stylist was selling a traditional Portuguese sweatshirt as a Mexican-inspired piece. My timeline was full of outraged tweets, despising not only the mistake about the design origins but, mostly, the unequivocal resemblance with the original, too similar to be considered a mere “inspiration”.
As a Portuguese, I must confess that my biggest surprise was: why have I never heard about this piece of clothing before? There is certainly something special about it, for it to be fabricated for more than 100 years, and having its design copied by a renowned American stylist. Here’s what I discovered:
The “Poveira” Jersey
The center of the scandal is the Poveira jersey, handy-knitted in Póvoa de Varzim, a town on the northern coast of Portugal.
This folk sweater is not much different from other woolen jerseys worn by fishermen all around the world, but there are some important elements that make it unique. First, the wool: a white thick yarn original from Serra da…
