Copenhagen fashion week has announced that exotic skin and feathers will be banned from catwalks next year, making it the biggest industry event yet to take place.
“Skål I invite her to Copenhagen Fashion Week because it sets the bar for other events,” says Yvonne Taylor, vice president of corporate projects for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta). “All eyes are now on other fashion week organizers who should follow suit.”
Fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna agrees: “This really proves to me that this organization (fashion weeks, potential brands) can take these big steps when pushed.”
But there’s still a long way to go. While the ban follows similar moves by brands such as Burberry and Chanel, as well as smaller fashion weeks such as Stockholm and Melbourne, it will take some time for exotic leathers such as crocodile, snake, crocodile and ostrich to be released. Peacock feathers, like fur, are considered cruel.
Just last month, the catwalks of New York, London, Paris and Milan were home to an aviary’s worth of feathers. They took part in the red carpets a lot this awards season.
Although there has been no significant increase in the use of exotic animal skins, one of the most notable designs of last year was the so-called Millionaire Speedy bag. Pharrell Williams’ crocodile skin design for Louis Vuitton lived up to its name with a price tag of $1 million. Saltwater crocodiles have some of the most sought-after skins in the industry, according to a report from ethical fashion advocacy. The collective Fashion Justice group and “Luxury brands like Hermès and Louis Vuitton not only source these leathers, they also own factory farms.”
The lawsuit against fur was filed after many years of work by animal rights advocates. It has now been banned by many of the luxury sector’s biggest brands, and although the British Fashion Council also officially banned fur from London fashion week in December, the ban has remained tacit since 2018.
But Emma Håkansson, founding director of Collective Fashion Justice, says she thinks that while the industry has generally “decided that killing an animal for fashion is unacceptable”, it has yet to grasp the cruelty in feather supply chains. likewise most commonly includes ostriches.
There is a lack of education. “The mainstream consumer doesn’t put two and two together and think there is any cruelty in feathers,” he says.
But according to Peta’s Yvonne Taylor, there is terrible cruelty in both feathers and exotic skins: “Snakes are stuffed with air or water while they are still alive, and lizards are roughly decapitated. Workers insert metal rods down the crocodiles’ spines and into their brains in an attempt to kill them.”
Håkansson, whose organization consulted World Animal Protection as well as Copenhagen fashion week to persuade them to introduce the policy, says part of the problem is “the way fashion separates the animal from the final product.” While researching feathers recently, she showed people a photo of a dress with decorations made of ostrich feathers. The vast majority could not identify them correctly. The same goes for brands. Its research last year found retailers including Asos, Boohoo and Selfridges were incorrectly labeling real feathers as “fake”.
Cruelty aside, even if consumers know that feathers are animal sourced or exotic skins come from alligators, La Manna highlights a cognitive dissonance: “We constantly pull ourselves back from the reality of what goes into our clothes, whether they’re workers or not.” ‘ Rights violations, whether it be gender-based violence and of course animal cruelty.
He also thinks that people in the West have been conditioned to be less likely to have an issue with persecution of a cold-blooded reptile than a furry mammal.
Håkansson agrees that there is an emotional barrier: “It’s really hard for people to connect with the fact that a crocodile or a snake is absolutely sentient in the same way that a fox or mink is,” he says.
However, despite all the progress made in the field of fur, there has been a decline even in this field. “I honestly think it’s because the cool girls are starting to wear them again,” says Le Manna.
At least the trend of massive fur coats and mafia women is to blame. the sopranos– elegance is fashionable. Hillary Taymour, designer of the Collina Strada brand, which attaches importance to ethical values, said, “TikTok is interested in recycling your grandmother’s fur.” “This is ushering in a resurgence in the use of fur and faux fur in the industry. The trend is spreading like wildfire and we’ve seen it everywhere in the fall collections.”
While there is an emphasis on rewearing old furs and upcycling materials, Taymour believes that “ultimately it’s vanity that’s harmful.” By creating the trend and standing behind it, you invite fast fashion houses to work together. [it].”
Håkansson also believes there is pressure from the industry to say that these materials, such as fur and leather, are natural, as opposed to fossil fuel-derived synthetic materials. However, once processed, they are no longer biodegradable, he notes.
The decline in fur may be linked to a broader trend of sustainability issues, which were so dominant in the fashion industry a few years ago, that are taking a backseat. Håkansson suspects fatigue. “There was an early epidemic with dolphins in Venice, and everyone was excited about what the world could be like. Then we got a little tired and went back to hyper-capitalist mode.”
Taymour admits that the conversation has been muted since the pandemic, pointing to the rise in costs of producing clothing, especially sustainable ones. “Big companies have abandoned the conversation to continue making profits,” he says.
Håkansson hopes people will be more patient. “There’s a feeling that solutions won’t work if they don’t happen overnight.” But “people need to be willing to play a longer game,” he said.