The Missing Threads: Buenos Aires Street Style and the Absence of Indigenous Fashion

After spending a year studying abroad in Buenos Aires (yes, I’m still talking about it), I can confidently say that the city’s fashion scene has its moments of effortless chic and undeniable cool.

On the surface, the streets swarm with style, from well-worn leather jackets to perfectly distressed cargos, boho-inspired accessories, and plenty of vintage football memorabilia; you will not see the students of the city rocking up to class in tracksuits and pjs, but blazers and designer handbags instead (think Blair from Gossip Girl, Season 1).

Nonetheless, beneath this stylish veneer lies a profound issue — one linked to Argentina’s struggle with its national identity, and not merely confined to the realm of fashion. 

The streets of Buenos Aires feel like a European nostalgia trip, from the Parisian inspired architecture of the distinct barrios (neighbourhoods) to the meticulously manicured shop windows of the city's designer boutiques.

Overall, across the city’s culture there’s a clear preference for trends and aesthetics borrowed from Paris, Milan, or London over a celebration of Argentina's indigenous heritage. While gaucho hats and bombachas may pop up during cultural festivals or when someone feels like playing dress-up for a Patagonia getaway, indigenous influences are either entirely absent in in day-to-day style, or relegated to the fringes of the city, the villas, where these practices are often frowned upon. 

It seemed to me that the entire fashion scene was actively turning its back on its own roots, in a broader trend where Buenos Aires attempts to appear as some distant outpost of Europe, rather than one of the pulsing hearts of South American culture.

The absence of indigenous fashion is not just about a lack of diversity in clothing options, but rather a sign of the cultural erasure at play in the region, one that goes hand-in-hand with the city’s colonial history and a society obsessed with being perceived as more European than Latin American. This is evident not only in the fashion scene, but also in the city’s language, considered by the porteños (residents of the city) more “cultured” than the accents and idioms of other regions.

It’s a contradiction that becomes impossible to ignore: a city that prides itself on its cosmopolitan modernity, yet fails to embrace the indigenous cultures that are a fundamental part of its identity.

The absence of indigenous representation reflects a deeper cultural discomfort with Argentina’s indigenous heritage. Traditional textiles, indigenous craftsmanship, and the stories they carry are often commodified and cheapened for tourists or confined to niche markets. And when it comes to everyday fashion, Buenos Aires seems determined to stick to a Eurocentric or even quasi-American script. It is important to understand that this isn’t just “fashion being fashion”, but rather fashion as a form of cultural denial: the lack of indigenous influence over the city’s street style echoes a wider social and political tendency to marginalise indigenous communities and minimise their cultural contributions. 

If Buenos Aires wants to continue calling itself a "cultural capital," it needs to start embracing all the segments of its culture, and not just those that look appealing on social media. Instead of outsourcing ideas and inspiration from Europe and patting itself on the back for being "avant-garde," the city’s style influencers, designers, and students could all stand to look closer to home, and to embrace their local history and culture. While the incorporation of indigenous craftsmanship and narratives into the fabric of everyday fashion should not be about ticking a diversity box, it could still be beneficial in challenging a narrative that has long excluded native voices and aesthetics from national history, and in setting a starting point for a more inclusive and genuinely Argentine identity.

Until then, Buenos Aires’ fashion scene remains a little too eager to play dress-up as a Parisian metropolis, while forgetting the beauty and richness of the local culture, an essential part of Argentina’s historical heritage. The city’s style is creative, no doubt—but it’s also a bit of an illusion, one that risks unravelling if it doesn’t acknowledge the indigenous threads woven into the nation’s history.

Words by Mia Kilpatrick, she/her