Opinions - possible cultural appropriation - a WWYD?

[DoraSpenlow]

Long story short. Let's call my friend Mary.

Mary's son went to Australia for an extended holiday after med school. While there he has met a lovely woman and they are to be married, in Australia, in November. At the moment they plan to live in Australia.

When they got engaged Mary went to Australia for the party and to meet her soon-to-be daughter-in-law and her family. Whilst at the party she particularly hit it off with the STBDILs granny. DIL and family are Indian and Mary was admiring the many colourful saris being worn and saying that we don't seem to get clothes with such beautiful, vibrant colours in the UK.

Two weeks ago a parcel arrived from granny containing the most beautiful midnight blue with gold trimming sari. There was a letter from granny saying she would be honoured if Mary would wear it for the wedding evening do. The ceremony itself is to be a Christian service but the evening party very much an Indian theme, so Mary would wear a normal 'mother of the bridegroom' outfit for the ceremony and meal immediatley afterwards, changing for the evening.

Now, Mary's daughter is horrified and has said that there is absolutely no way she should wear the sari because 'cultural appropriation' and that if Mary intends to wear it to the evening do, the daughter will refuse to go.

So, does Mary offend the granny by not wearing the sari, or the (very woke) daughter by wearing it, and run the risk she may have to attend on her own? Personally I would wear it as granny has gone to the expense of buying and shipping it. (And also my friend looks amazing in it).

WWYD? Can any Australian Mumsnetters give a view of how acceptable it would be in Australia?

PS, the bride and bride's mother are quite happy for Mary to wear the sari as a sign she is accepting of the cross culture marriage (their words).

Not wearing it would be a snub. She should wear it ...her dd has a cheek telling her what she can or cannot wear

As it's a WWYD - Mary needs to say to her daughter "I'm not going to offend the bride's family and grandmother by refusing to wear the beautiful sari they sent me, and that is final. If you actually decide not to attend the wedding because of this, and that this is something that matters so much to you that you are prepared to upset your brother, his bride and her family over it, that's your choice."

Agree this is not cultural appropriation. She's been invited to wear it! It seems like a lovely gesture of the two families joining.

When my brother got married we were delighted that all the men in his new wife's family chose to wear kilts - they're Chinese and we're Scottish. My SIL gave my (white, ginger haired) daughter a beautiful cheongsam to wear as a flower girl and it didn't cross my mind not to put her in it!

So beautiful saris are party clothes with a particular cultural background. The mother would be wearing it in the correct social context. It’s not like wearing a ceremonial or religious item as a halloween costume. It’s a party outfit being worn to a culturally appropriate party with the blessing of the people organizing the party, and actually someone from the relevant culture asking the mother to wear it. It’s more than fine, it would probably be rude not to wear it at this point.

If the dd is worried about how it looks to other guests, I wonder if the father of the bride speech could mention it? Like a thanks to "grooms family" for making us so welcome and for gifting my wife this beautiful outfit... I'm sure you'll all agree she looks wonderful " or some such wording

Haha, yes, this

Wear it. I have dozens of sari's, salwar kameez, kimono's... Nobody has ever been offended. Its about the respect (and comfort!) - one world, one human race. We have an awful lot of problems to solve, but what we wear really isn't one of them

However, where I live in rural England there are no shops selling saris or anything remotely like them.
No doubt Mary has never had cause to shop for a sari so really wouldn't know whether they are in fact readily available and in such lovely colours.
The world would be a much better place if, before passing judgement, people acknowledged that their life experience is not always the same as other people's.
Mary needs to tell her daughter to keep her very silly and immature opinion to herself.

Mary’s daughter doesn’t understand what cultural appropriation is and needs to pipe down.

It would be earth-shatteringly rude for Mary not
to wear the sari that granny has gone to considerable trouble and expense to send her with an explicit request that she wear it.

Mary was given it by an actual Indian person, her woke daughter needs to get a grip and realise Gen Z aren't the authority on right and wrong, whatever BuzzFeed etc tells her.

''Cultural appropriation'' is one of the most stupid concepts to appear in the past few years...

Different cultures have been influencing, mixing and learning from each other since the beginning of time.

Anyone who uses that term is complete idiot as far as I am concerned.

Mary's daughter needs to a) grow up and b) engage her brain to decide who Mary would be upsetting/disrespectful to if she wears the gifted sari vs if she doesn't rather than spouting rehashed 6th form white saviour views.

Is this for real? Is Mary’s daughter nuts? Mary should absolutely wear the sari and her daughter can do one.

PS: If you are invited to an Indian wedding (and even more so if you are the non-Indian MIL/SIL/FIL/BIL of an Indian bride or groom), please do make the effort to wear Indian clothes. I am still kind of upset my ILs didn’t but I can’t hold it against them because I didn’t explicitly ask. Mary has been explicitly asked here!

This. She has been actively invited to share in the cultural tradition as part of the celebration. That's not appropriation.

Mary's daughter is riding a high horse of white privilege, isn't she?

She's ignoring the express wishes of the people she believes she's saving from insult.

No problem wearing the sari at all and I agree with other posters that it would now be rude if she didn’t. It’s not cultural appropriation if you’re asked by people of that culture!
I’ve been to a wedding in India and wore a lehenga to the main wedding and then a shalwar kameeze to the mehndi. Everyone encouraged us to wear them and even took us out shopping for more items and the bangles! Also wore my lehenga to a Pakistani wedding in this country - no
one minded in the slightest!

PS, the bride and bride's mother are quite happy for Mary to wear the sari as a sign she is accepting of the cross culture marriage (their words).

This is all that matters. Mary's daughter needs to keep her opinions to herself.

single hardest part of my Indian friend announcing her engagement was waiting a polite amount of time before asking about wearing saris. I looked terrible but that was not the fault of the sari and it loved it.

The daughter is being ridiculous of course Mary should wear it to the wedding its an honour that Granny sent this and she might be hurt that Mary doesn't wear it.

As an aside my friend has been to 2 Indian weddings and wore sari all the white women guests did.

As long as Mary wants to wear it then she should. I've married an Indian man and his family are always giving me Indian clothes. They see it as very respectful to their culture if I wear a sari to a wedding. It really means a lot to them.

Your daughter is being idiotic.

Sorry, not your daughter!

I think Mary's daughter should do the same as her mother and wear formal wear for the ceremony and a sari for the evening party. Careful with the colour of the sari though (that I learnt from MM), some colours are reserved for the bride and their mourning colours do not fully match ours. So, have a chat with Mary's DIL-to be.

I think this is the best way of celebrating the union of two cultures and families.

I’m white British, my DH is Punjabi. Even way before we were married his mum would have had stern words with me had I NOT worn a sari or Punjabi suit. I love my MIL and we get on great but I do as I’m told! We’ve been married 20 years now and I have a huge collection of amazing Indian clothes and jewellery which I love wearing. I even wore a sari to one of our DC’s christenings which my MIL was so pleased about. She told me that I’m her favourite daughter (she has
4 DDs already 😆)

The daughter in this case is being a massive dick. What on earth has it got to do with her anyway? I think there might be an element of jealousy here…….

I was in a similar situation. I was invited to an Indian wedding in India. The family of the groom (my friend) suggested we wear traditional clothing. I was a bit worried about it being like ‘dress up’ (this was 15 years ago so I didn’t have the woke vocab to hand) but it was clear to me from conversations that it meant a lot to the family. We did it. I love that sari, I think I never felt more beautiful. I still have it but I would only wear it on invitation.