Fake Authenticity: When brands sell back a culture they erased.

Imagine yourself as a nine-year-old, sitting in your school hallway, knees pulled up, back pressed against the grey concrete wall. The bell for lunch just rang, and the air is thick with the smell of Maggi and jam sandwiches, and while you unscrew the steel lid of your tiffin, you find your favorite appetizer, “the chutney,” lying along with two soft rotis, which your grandmother makes in batches so large the whole house smells of roasting cumin and jaggery for two days. You're proud of it for exactly three seconds until your batchmate walks past, sniffs the air, and says, "What died in your tiffin box?" That's when you realize that the fermented, spiced, hand-ground foods from your kitchen have no place in the modern, scentless world of school corridors and malls. So, you hide them, pushing the chutney to the back of the fridge behind the ketchup and chocolate spread.

Now fast-forward twenty years, no longer that child but an adult with taste, standing in a specialty foods store with a reclaimed wood interior and a playlist engineered to make you feel like you're holidaying in a Tulum yoga retreat, you spot a jar with minimalist typography and the words “Artisanal”, “Fermented”, and “Raw”, launched by a fast-food giant that has somehow learned to whisper words like craft and heritage. They're calling it "Spicy Mango Ferment: a bold, complex flavor profile inspired by ancient Ayurvedic wisdom," but when you look closer, it's really the chutney everyone deemed too much, too strong, too Indian, and you, the sophisticated adult you've become, you reach for your credit card because it's not just chutney anymore, is it? It's validation.

This is not a story about chutney; in fact, there is no shame to admit that it is a particular kind of insult that arrives gift-wrapped, subtle enough to pass as admiration but hollow at its core. This is fake authenticity where cultural symbols are stripped of their context, sanitized of their history, and, in many cases, sold back to a consumer market under the guise of celebration sitting at an uncomfortable intersection of commerce, colonialism, and identity, and as both the global fashion industry and the food industry expand aggressively into "ethnic" markets, the stakes are no longer just symbolic.

The Business of Borrowed Cultures

The global ethnic foods market is projected to experience significant growth according to various sources. One report estimates the market at USD 48.6 billion by 2024, growing to USD 78.1 billion by 2030, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2%. Another report values the market at approximately USD 78.2 billion in 2024, with expectations to rise to USD 120.7 billion by 2030, resulting in a CAGR of 7.5%. While the exact figures may vary slightly between sources and timeframes, it can be assumed that they align with overall market trends. U.S. supermarket ethnic aisle revenues hit $8.84 billion for the 52 weeks ending June 16, 2024, with dollar sales up 4.3% and units up 0.8%. Later data shows $9.35 billion for the 52 weeks ending Dec. 1, 2024, indicating continued growth. Corporations like Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, and Kraft Heinz lead via acquisitions and portfolio growth in ethnic categories. PepsiCo acquired Siete Foods (Mexican-inspired) for $1.2 billion to tap multicultural demand. Kraft Heinz bought Brazilian condiment firm Hemmer, adding 250+ products for taste elevation in emerging markets. Unilever pursues deals like merging food ops with McCormick (spices/sauces), while Nestlé invests in diverse lines; both prioritize innovation hubs and acquisitions.

Furthermore, the fashion industry tells the same story in a different language, treating marginalized cultures as free inspiration without equitable engagement, such as Aztec prints on fast-fashion racks, kente cloth patterns in European luxury collections, and South Asian motifs on swimwear. Thus, the claims are proven correct regarding a creative economy that exploits marginalized cultures as unprotected and abundant resources.

When Aesthetics are Stripped of History

What makes the phenomenon distinctly harmful, rather than merely irritating, is the deliberate severing of an aesthetic from its history. When a fashion brand lifts the geometric weaving of Ecuador's indigenous Otavalo artisans and reproduces it as a print on a tote bag, as Loewe did with its Spring/Summer 2018 collection, the original makers receive no credit and no compensation. By the same token, within this corrupt system, Chanel built an entire Métiers d'Art collection around Native American imagery in 2013 and described a feather headdress as "one of the most visually stunning examples of creativity and craftsmanship," which performed appreciation while committing extraction. The headdress was removed from its context as a sacred object and turned into a runway prop for a brand that carries no historical accountability to the people who wore it.

In food, the same erasure occurs with a particular cynicism notably to South Asian women who were bullied in school for oiling their hair, or whose lunch boxes were mocked for smelling of turmeric, live to see those same ingredients celebrated as "superfoods" and "ancient remedies" rebranded by wellness companies that never mention their origins also the kimchi that Korean immigrant families were shamed for fermenting in their apartments now lines the shelves of artisan delis at a premium markup. Therefore, it could be said that communities that have preserved these traditions often receive little financial benefit from the premium markup on delis, despite facing decades of cultural hostility.

The Navajo Nation & the Limits of the Law

The most instructive case study in the intersection of cultural erasure and commercial profit is the years-long legal battle between the Navajo Nation and Urban Outfitters. In 2011, the retailer launched a line of clothing and accessories, including underwear, flasks, and socks, marketed under the "Navajo" name. The Navajo Nation, which held 86 registered trademarks on its name covering clothing, footwear, and textiles, and had generated over $500 million in sales of legitimately Navajo-branded goods, filed a lawsuit in 2012 alleging trademark infringement and violation of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, a federal law prohibiting the misrepresentation of goods as Native American–made. The case exposed a brutal irony, stating Urban Outfitters' legal defence rested partly on the argument that "Navajo" had simply become a generic descriptor for a style of print in the fashion industry, meaning the tribe's cultural identity had been appropriated so thoroughly that it could now be claimed to have entered the public domain. The case settled in 2016, ultimately resulting in a collaboration and licensing agreement. But the precedent was damning as the court had, at various stages, entertained the idea that a living tribe's name could be genericised by a retail chain's sustained exploitation of it.

The Authenticity Paradox

There is a particular cruelty in the word "authentic" when brands deploy it. A 2022 study published on consumer perceptions of cultural appropriation found that when brands use elements from historically disadvantaged cultures, those that were targets of discrimination and prejudice, consumers are more likely to perceive their use as exploitative rather than appreciative. The critical variable was not the brand's intent but the history of that culture's treatment. This is precisely why the Mexican government's formal intervention in the Carolina Herrera case in 2019 was significant, where the Mexican Minister of Culture wrote directly to the Venezuelan-born designer, citing the use of traditional Istmo de Tehuantepec floral patterns and Saltillo serape designs in the brand's Resort 2020 collection. The complaint outlines a pattern of high-fashion brands appropriating indigenous craft traditions from economically disadvantaged communities, selling them at unaffordable prices for the original artisans. This cycle involves extraction, decontextualization, commercialization, and insincere apologies.

What Accountability Looks Like

There are models of how this can be done differently, though they require genuine structural commitment. Take an Example of Brazilian luxury brand Osklen, which collaborated directly with the Amazonian Asháninka tribe for its 2016 spring collection, designing in partnership rather than in extraction. Further evidence indicates that the Bihor Couture initiative, launched in Romania after Dior produced a coat clearly derived from Romanian folk craft and sold it for 30,000 euros, created a platform to sell the authentic, handmade original for 500 euros, with proceeds going directly to the artisans. While the fashion and food industries show what collaboration and fair compensation can look like, they lack the incentive to change. As long as the market values cultural aesthetics without proper acknowledgment, it will continue to prioritize extraction over equity.

When a brand sells a culture, it once helped erase, it engages in two stages: first, the culture’s elements are suppressed, reducing their value in the dominant market; second, once marginalized, these cultural symbols can be extracted and marketed as exotic or artisanal, stripped of their original context. The appropriate response is not more careful appropriation or better-worded apologies. It is traceability, consent, credit, and compensation, the same standards we apply to any other form of intellectual and creative property, for every community, regardless of whether history has already taken something from them once.

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