The Pendleton Problem: When Does Cultural Appreciation Tip Into Appropriation?

Growing up in New Mexico, Venancio Aragon (Diné) remembers that a Pendleton wool blanket was one of the most precious gifts you could give or receive. Though his family has been practicing Navajo weaving for generations, he puts on a Pendleton for special occasions. "They’re part of our cultural landscape," says Aragon, who does polychromatic, non-traditional weaving. "Pendleton blankets become synonymous with Native Americans, I guess, although not being made by Native Americans at all."

And for many, that’s part of the problem with Pendleton Woolen Mills. It’s a company that’s profited from Indigenous designs for more than 100 years, though for six generations, it’s been owned by the Bishop family, who are not Native American. Today, some activists and designers are calling out companies like Pendleton, along with Restoration Hardware and Urban Outfitters, for their habit of taking designs and motifs from Indigenous cultures around the world and copying them for profit.

Cultural appropriation—when people from a more powerful or more affluent culture profit by taking symbols, arts, and ideas from historically disenfranchised groups without credit or compensation—is a widespread problem.

Indigenous Hawaiian motifs, for example, are often borrowed and reimagined. "Martha Stewart and Tommy Bahama both take our quilt patterns and they will modify them somewhat…and call them Hawaiian quilt patterns," says Jalene Kanani Hitzeman, a Hawaiian designer who runs Noho Home based in Honolulu.

Young Huh, a designer based in New York City, says a cultural or religious object, like a Buddha sculpture, can make a design meaningful. But she can’t understand why, even today, so many designers and leading textile firms embrace the fetishized Asian images in chinoiserie, a Western European rip-off of authentic Chinese and Japanese motifs.

"Where the cultural appropriation gets uncomfortable is when you have modern-day depictions of Chinese people in coolie hats that are supposed to be reminiscent of the 18th century," Huh says. People would be horrified at wallpaper showing African slaves dancing. "But for some reason, people find it perfectly acceptable to have Western depictions of Asian culture."

Malene Barnett, a ceramicist, textile designer, and activist, says acquiring artifacts you love or want to study is one thing. But she wonders what’s driving so many non-Black collectors to hold the largest collections of African art. "History knows the Europeans have the best collections of African art, but it was stolen," says Barnett. "When I see white individuals who have such large collections, it’s just a reminder of the injustice and inequity."

Pendleton’s Past 

For more than 100 years, Pendleton and Native American communities have enjoyed a complicated symbiotic relationship. Direct sales to Native American organizations only account for 30-40% of Pendleton’s business, says Kathy Monaghan, a spokeswoman for the company, which also makes popular striped national parks blankets and plaid shirts. But it’s an influential segment and source of inspiration that’s driven the company’s design aesthetic since the beginning.