As early as 2015, Dior began floating ads featuring vaguely Native American themes and Johnny Depp, who has been the face of Dior parfum line Sauvage—savage in English—for several years. The new campaigns featured Depp in a decidedly less polished tuxedo-clad international playboy look and more Native American imagery.
At the time, Dior and Depp received backlash over hinting at a connection between Native Americans and a product called sauvage. The line itself has been part of Dior Parfum since 1966 without any Native American connection.
Sauvage, like savage in English, is used throughout French accounts of interactions with Indigenous people in North America during the settler colonial period in the USA and Canada. The Declaration of Independence even includes a passage referring to Natives as "merciless Indian savages."
Like many derogatory terms from the colonial era, savage is now recognized as a racial slur and not used to refer to Indigenous peoples.
Dior eventually took most of these earlier ads, including these from 2018, down from their official pages...
Depp has no known or named Native ancestors or tribal affiliations beyond his honorary one. Depp was made an honorary member of the Comanche tribe when tribal members were given jobs on his film The Lone Ranger.
LaDonna Harris, founder of Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) who "adopted" Depp during The Lone Ranger period, was cited as a consultant on the new Dior Sauvage project.
When a direct connection was made between Sauvage and Natives, the backlash was swift and vehement across social media, however, despite AIO involvement.
Meanwhile, Dior had tipis on display with their logo and "NEW SAUVAGE" at the Victoria and Albert museum in London.
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Dior also held "New Moon Festivals" across Europe with tipis, a dance routine with dancers and participants in redface—dressing in stereotypical costumes mocking Native American sacred regalia including headdresses and face paint.
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Author, artist and activist Ryan RedCorn called it a "cultural appropriation orgy" complete with a dance number in headdresses around a fire with tipis in the background.
Watch snippets of Dior's Sauvage events in Europe here.
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Even before Dior's festival began, Natives online let Dior know Sauvage was not a word or image they wanted to be associated with.
And the charges of racism and cultural appropriation are not restricted to Instagram or Native Americans.
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Prominent Native scholars and activists created the hashtag #NotYourSauvage on Twitter where Dior simultaneously launched their campaign.
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Professor, author and activist Cutcha Risling Baldy posted a few times about the "New Sauvage."
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Scholar and activist Dr. Adrienne Keene of Native Appropriations also weighed in with receipts going back to 2012 on Depp and Dior.
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People were a bit confused by the message.
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Some tried to defend Depp and Dior, but those fans appeared outnumbered.
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By Friday evening, Dior had pulled their posts of the ad from social media as they had in December without explanation or apology. They did offer this statement however:
"The Parfums Christian Dior project is a part of AIO’s Advance Indigeneity Campaign to change the misperceptions about Native Americans, to share accurate American history, to build awareness about Native Americans as contemporary peoples and to promote Indigenous worldviews."
Whether they have scrapped the ad campaign and the association between Sauvage and Indigenous peoples or simply plan to use it outside of social media to avoid backlash is unclear.
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