Demonize leather, as done with fur. So as to marginalize it, have the public disliked it and therefore inconvenient for brands and designers. The political design of vegan associations such as PETA is clear: the incursions during the latest Coach and Hermès fashion shows mark the raising of the magnitude of the confrontation. Vogue Business accounts for this with a piece that we would call far too lenient with veg positions. The same piece, however, acknowledges that high fashion has no intention of pandering to the claims of radical animal rights activists. And that is heartening.
Those who want to demonize leather
The goal of vegan associations, we said, is to give leather the same treatment they gave fur. Which, in the space of a few decades, has been transformed in spite of itself from a luxury material par excellence into an object of embarrassment for those brands that do not have the courage to face a picket line of provocateurs. Vegan associations, writes Vogue Business, are clashing with a fashion system this time unwilling to go along with their claims.
Why? First, because leather is a much more widespread and cross-cutting material in collections than fur was. It is not possible to quantify the use of leather because there are no metrics and measurements, “but we see leather everywhere”, comments John Bartlett of Parsons School of Design. Acumen Research Consulting, indeed, predicts its use to grow by 6% in the next few years. How do you get such a valuable asset out of the way?
Here to stay
In short, vegans must accept that international fashion labels see so-called next-gen materials as an extra arrow for their bow, not a pick to undermine leather from its position of prestige. Just as they must come to terms with the fact that fashion holding companies, when the focus on sustainability and animal welfare grows, invest in the supply chain, not arbitrarily (as they would like to) remove pieces of the value chain. Reading the Vogue Business piece ultimately reassures us. Of course, as we are unfortunately well aware, for marketing reasons every now and then brands concede contentions to the vegan big box. But in the challenge with radical animal activists, tanning has the upper hand.
Pictured are PETA protests against Hermès
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