Season of the Dead
I’m a vegetarian. I have been for as long as I can remember. I’m also a big animal lover. If I could talk to the animals, they’d know that I’d rather see their fur on their own backs.
Still, I’m not really the paint-throwing, PETA type. I admire those people, but protest isn’t really my bag. I try to live according to my ideals instead of paying lip service to an ideology. I’m also not the kind of person who would tell you that it’s wrong to wear fur. People make their own decisions, and if there’s any reason to expect Karmic repercussions for selfish behavior, they’ll have to deal with the consequences of their actions.
And perhaps there will be consequences after the F/W 2009 shows. Leather and fur were everywhere this season – even at Toronto Fashion Week. I don’t know if the fur coat pictured on the Pink Tartan runway was real, but the leather pants probably are.
With technology presenting us with so many options to look good and feel comfortable, why are we still using the pelts of dead animals in the name of fashion?
Every other industry in the world is attempting to go green (for the sake of public relations, if nothing else), including many manufacturers of textiles. But high-end fashion doesn’t seem to care, and their continued reliance on leather proves that.
If you really want to know more about the environmental cost of leather, just Google “Ranipet, India.” It made me think twice about what I wear, even when I had been told that the leather industry could never use as much cowhide as the meat industry produced.
Now I hope that the bamboo industry hasn’t hyped up the new ”miracle fabric” without doing adequate research. I’d like to know that what I’m wearing on my back isn’t wearing on someone else’s lifespan.
