Sanaa Hamid grew up grappling with this question. As a product of the South Asian diaspora, the 21-year-old photography student from Rochester, England, is constantly aware of what she calls “offensive” cultural appropriation. […] It seemed wrong to Hamid that people — and clothing brands — can simply lift culturally important symbols and transform them into mainstream fashion trends. She says the person who ends up wearing these trends often have no link to the culture or religion it came from. […] Hamid, the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, says that she has felt very real pressure to conform to “Western beauty ideals” and abandon anything that lets her culture or heritage show too much. It’s a double standard that she’s calling into question. “If a Western person is accepted and applauded as ‘quirky’ and ‘cool’ for wearing a keffiyeh and a Middle Eastern is labeled a terrorist or ‘towelhead’ and dismissed as such, then no, that’s absolutely not okay.” More here.