Every so often, in the press review, you come across pieces on no-leather fashion. That is, articles that talk about the need for fashion to stop using materials of animal origin. Or in interviews glorifying designers and brands that have decided to do so. The last two we caught were published by La Repubblica and the Financial Times, respectively.
And they cannot leave us indifferent. Because it is true that most of the time these pieces on no-leather fashion serve only to give breath to the mouths. But in the long run, especially if they come from such prestigious publications, they condition public opinion and legitimise industrial choices that are questionable to say the least. Volvo case is there to remind us of this.
The two reports:
- First piece, as we were saying, comes from Green & Blue by la Repubblica. The author takes it so much for granted that no leather products should be used (let alone fur, for heaven’s sake, or other animal products) that he doesn’t even bother to back up his statement with a shred of argument. One line is enough: “There’s not a single good reason to use leather as a fashion accessory, unless you’re Cruella or Fantozzi’s Galactic Megadirector”. Please note that the article is reserved for subscribers: never before have we considered it luck that the paywall stands between the general public and such content;
- Second piece, on the other hand, is from the Financial Times, and in our opinion it is the most serious: can the major daily newspaper of the international business community publish such an editorial so lightly? In this case, the author tries to support her arguments in some way. For example, the journalist does not deny the circularity of the tanning industry, which ennobles a by-product of animal husbandry. But she has such an aversion to leather, that in her opinion it is still more sustainable to dump raw hides in landfills, rather than turn them into a material for fashion. “As a vegan and an animal lover,” she writes, “I am horrified when I walk into a showroom with rows of bags and shoes made of leather”. There, the sentence is revealing: from these premises, how can the conclusions be serene and reasonable? In the editorial staff of the Financial Times, someone should have wondered.
Read also:
- Volvo’s dirty trick: reforming the livestock industry by punishing leather
- Only Green in theory: “When will plastic in the fashion segment become a topic of conversation?”
