Over 100 dutch fashion designers, stylists, fashion magazines, photographers and celebrities have called the direction of the Amsterdam Fashion Week in an open letter to choose for a fur free fashion week. They believe that facilitating fur free shows is a logical choice for innovation, sustainability and animal welfare.
The Amsterdam Fashion Week has a good name to keep up since they host the Green Fashion Competition. In their letter they state that the ambition of sustainability and showing fur on the catwalk are not compatible.
The letter points to an independent research by research agency CE Delft that investigated the environmental impact of fur. Their output: 1 kilo of mink fur is five times more damaging for the climate then 1 kilo of textiles and causes serious environmental damage. Next to the environmental impact there is off course the aspect of animal welfare too. One might get a bit annoyed by the emotional “all those poor animals” campaigns of some animal rights organizations but animal torture is not sexy.
Last year, Oslo Fashion Week was the first worldwide to officially ban fur from the catwalk.
I think it is a good initiative which should be followed by fashion professionals, trade shows and fashion weeks around the globe.
Berlin, are you ready to go fur free?
Image by Indyact