Dr. Pamela Sugiman provides her insight in this Globe and Mail article.
Pamela Sugiman is a sociology professor at Ryerson University and an expert on the historical racialization of Japanese Canadians. “People can get upset because it’s almost trivializing something that is of cultural significance,” says Sugiman. “I think there’s an attempt to hold on to some traditions and cultural symbols and it seems almost disrespectful for a non-Japanese white person to don the kimono as a fashion statement without acknowledgement of that piece of clothing.”