'I'm Japanese and I didn’t know it.' Why everyone is talking about Gwen Stefani.

If the headline didn’t give it away, Gwen Stefani has had a serious case of ‘speaking before thinking’ syndrome.

In an interview with Allure, the star was taken through a trip down memory lane reflecting on the launch of her Harajuku Lovers fragrance collection in 2008 and what lessons she’s applying to GXVE Beauty, her new vegan makeup brand.  

Watch Gwen Stefani join James Corden on Carpool Karaoke. Post continues after video.

Gwen Stefani is no different from her pop star peers of the 2000s, whose old ideas are currently making new headlines because of shifting conversations on cultural appropriation. 

Think white singers using braids, bantu knots, bindis and culturally significant garments for ‘aesthetics’ and that brings us back to Harajuku Lovers and Stefani’s album Love.Angel.Music.Baby which used the Japanese Harajuku style purely for visual effect. 

The fragrance took the western world by storm because of its design, with each bottle made to look like Japanese doll versions of Stefani and her Japanese backup dancers, who were solely employed for the promotion of Love.Angel.Music.Baby. – their ethnicity used to promote and market Stefani’s brand. 

Allure interviewer Jesa Marie Calaor, a first-generation Filipina American, asked Stefani what she learnt from Harajuku Lovers, the good, the bad and whatever else in between.

“She [Stefani] responded by telling me a story she’s shared with the press before about her father’s job at Yamaha, which had him travelling between their home in California and Japan for 18 years,” Calaor wrote, and then Gwen Stefani left her stunned. 

"That was my Japanese influence, and that was a culture that was so rich with tradition, yet so futuristic [with] so much attention to art and detail and discipline and it was fascinating to me,” Stefani said, recalling how her father would tell them stories of Japanese street performers and “stylish women with colourful hair”. 

Stefani continued explaining that being able to visit Harajuku herself as an adult and see these people with her own eyes, she realised "I said, 'My God, I'm Japanese and I didn't know it'," – a statement that left her interviewer stunned to silence before the pop star doubled down saying: "I am, you know."

"If [people are] going to criticise me for being a fan of something beautiful and sharing that, then I just think that doesn't feel right… I think it was a beautiful time of creativity… a time of the ping-pong match between Harajuku culture and American culture… [It] should be okay to be inspired by other cultures because if we're not allowed then that's dividing people, right?" 

Image: Getty/Gwen Stefani

There’s a fine line between ‘Cultural Appropriation’ and ‘Cultural Appreciation’, and it feels like this line is still being established with differing opinions across the board. 

Personally, as an Indian Australian woman, I feel like it’s about intention and respect. 

I see a white girl posting a picture on Instagram wearing a saree and a bindi to an Indian wedding and I smile because she looks beautiful, and she’s getting involved and appreciating another culture. 

I see another white girl at a music festival wearing a bindi on her forehead and I roll my eyes. 

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked ‘but where’s your dot’, especially in my childhood. 

So how come when this girl wears it, she’s considered pretty and carefree but the Indian girlies get the sniggers?

In the same way, how are Asian American people suffering hate crimes and racism because of their culture yet Gwen Stefani could pick the bits she liked, wear them and be applauded?

I'm not sure banning people from wearing certain things is the answer, but regardless of whether Stefani ‘believes’ in cultural appropriation, the least she can do is give the people calling it out a chance to explain their experience considering she made (and is still making) millions off the back of their culture. 

Feature Image: Gwen Stefani - 'Let Me Reintroduce Myself' Music Video