In recent years, heritage fashion houses have been forced to re-evaluate their definitions of luxury. Furriers and exotic tanners have long had a place within the pantheon of haute couture, but things are changing thanks to organisations such as PETA that can launch hundreds of thousands of activists at global brands, armed with videos depicting animal abuse, negative social media comments and public shaming. Within the last year, more than 10 fashion houses, including Jean Paul Gaultier, Maison Margiela and Versace, have dropped fur from their lines. With the announcement this week that Chanel will be discontinuing exotic leather —such as from shakes, lizards and crocodiles — this may just be the beginning of a new chapter to the fight.
Speaking to SLEEK, Joanne Yulan Jong, founder of the strategic fashion brand consultancy, Yulan Creative, which advises brands such as Armani and Missoni, says that today’s consumer is less concerned with having the most exotic and rare materials than they are with the ethics of the garments. “Customers today are looking for complete transparency,” Jong explains. “There is an general period of awakening. Sustainability and environmental damage, as well as cause and effect have finally reached the public consciousness. Brands will want to appear to be moving with the zeitgeist and keeping up to date.”
There are two main factors that make exotic skins more problematic for the public than their bovine counterparts. First, there is a large difference between how people view skins that are considered a by-product of the meat industry and those that are solely used for fashion. Although there are people who may cook up a crocodile, snake, stingray, or a lizard, the industry for this type of meat is significantly smaller than the demand for the skins.
Second, the supply chain for exotic skins can get murky as many of these products originate from countries that have a much more lax standard for animal welfare than North America or Europe. “Tracing the origins of skins within the supply chain is very hard,” Jong says. “Even though brands do take care and do adhere to guidelines, it’s almost impossible to know for sure where they really came from. Brands don’t want to have a scandal on their hands so rather than take the risk, it’s easier to stop using them.”
Even if brands are not directly connected to farms guilty of mistreating animals, the publicity around these productions taints the entire industry. In 2015, PETA allegations against Hermès crocodile leather sourcing put pressure on Jane Birkin to take her name away from the company’s iconic Birkin bag, which is made to order for every customer and costs anywhere from five to six figures.
The International Fur Federation is trying to fight back by pitting the environmental statistics of fake fur against those of real fur, arguing that the faux pelts are contributing to fast fashion landfills, but this sustainability reasoning has done little to bring large houses back into the fold. Similarly, the environmental protection body, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, has fired back against Chanel’s statement by penning an opinion piece on The Business of Fashion stating that exotic skins caught in the wild are necessary for the conservation of natural habitats that host a variety of species.
Still, it is important not to conflate the eradication of these materials in the fashion houses of luxury groups, such as Kering and LVMH, and the disappearance of fur and exotic skins from fashion altogether. The fight comes at a time when animal prints and the pelt aesthetic are very much on trend — to the untrained eye, it would be easy to hide a pair of real python boots among snake patterns printed on leather, or a sheared beaver coat in a sea of brown faux sheers.
While fashion brands with a huge amount of global visibility feel the most scrutiny, smaller brands, like Saks Potts — a Danish house famous for its furs that can be seen on celebrities like Alexa Chung and Cardi B — are flourishing. “Niche brands can afford to stake their claim in a smaller market sector, very specific and serving that specific customer. We will see [fur] disappear from the big brands, it’s easier to drop it than face the public backlash,” Jong says.
The London-based brand consultant believes that as more brands continue to move away from controversial fabrics, even the materials that are not being completely abandoned will come under the ethical microscope. “We’ll see moves to change and improvements to the tanning process as it really pollutes the environment. We will also see a move to optimise the use of skins as there is so much waste,” Jong says.
For now, let’s see who will be the first to follow Chanel’s skin policy.
Joanne Yulan Jong is the founder of the strategic fashion brand consultancy, Yulan Creative and author of The Fashion Switch “The New Rules of the Fashion Business”.