I am a member of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, a close relative of the Seminole Tribe of Indians from which your designs were “inspired”. You see, your designs were not inspired, they are complete knock offs. I call them knock offs because you took our exact designs and replicated them. You did not create a fabric “inspired by” or add a little flare to your own design to show “inspired by”. Instead, you saw our traditional pieces and recreated them in the colors and sizes that you prefer for your high end market.
When something inspires something else, a small piece of it makes it to the final piece. For example, if someone is inspired by an individual for a painting, they can take an element of them, their eyes, their hair, their expression, the shirt they are wearing, the pants they have on, etc. But if they were to paint the entire person, they would have to seek that persons permission before they can profit off of their likeness. That is what you have done. You have profited off of our likeness.
But FINE, let’s take away the “The Indian Arts and Crafts Act (Act) of 1990 (P.L. 101-644) is a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits misrepresentation in the marketing of Indian arts and crafts products within the United States. It is illegal to offer or display for sale, or sell any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization, resident within the United States. For a first time violation of the Act, an individual can face civil or criminal penalties up to a $250,000 fine or a 5-year prison term, or both. If a business violates the Act, it can face civil penalties or can be prosecuted and fined up to $1,000,000.” Let’s say that you did not claim it to be Seminole/Miccosukee made, the cultural appropriation and theft of our designs 100% stands.
To add insult to injury, you have claimed that you did it to bring awareness to my people. If this were true, there would have been a conversation between The Seminole and/or Miccosukee Tribe and Ulla Johnson. No such conversation ever took place as you yourself have acknowledged. If such a conversation had in fact taken place, you would have known that you are spreading a culturally ignorant piece. The piece you are selling “The Mika Dress” in its final form is actually a garment inspired by the clothing our MEN wear, not the women.
So by creating the piece for women, you not only did not spread awareness, but you created something for profit, for women, designed straight off the men of the Seminole/Miccosukee Nations, and claimed to be inspired without spreading any sort of awareness. Again, everything you did is counter intuitive to the claims that you have made.
To put it into simpler terms, the piece below is a blatant knock off. They didn’t even bother to change colors or anything. They took the same dress and recreated it. BUT, you were properly credited, even showing the original garment that “inspired” it. They refer people back to you. All you did was write “Patchwork stripes inspired by traditional Seminole techniques bring bold color to this flouncy A-line dress finished with billowy sleeves for added volume.” How does this bring awareness to our Tribes? At all? I’ll wait.
If you see the dress above and feel annoyed/frustrated by it, then you see my point. Although the dress you created isn’t a 100% knock off of an already existing dress we have made, the design is 100% created in the same manner that our traditional male attire is completed. Long sleeves, patchwork on the sleeves, top and bottom and the opening in the front. Then you claim “finished with billowy sleeves for added volume” when our original attire already has the “billowy sleeves”. You are claiming that as your own thought to have added by saying “finished with”.
So again, please stop selling the products that you claim to have been “inspired” by Seminole/Miccosukee people and also take them off the shelves of all of your merchants and refund them. Only then can we begin to tackle this matter with a blank slate and honest intentions.
Thank you! Althea, Bird Clan Member of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, Seamstress, Wife, Mother & Advocate
Althea Frye 