The battle to banish fur from fashion being mostly won, with almost all luxury brands fur-free, Stella McCartney is now on a mission to save the birds.
“1.5 billion birds are killed for their feathers by the fashion industry every year,” the designer said backstage after a street catwalk show held in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, launching a campaign to put bird cruelty in the spotlight.
“When you see a pretty feather trim, or a puffer jacket with a down filling, I don’t think you necessarily register that a bird has been killed. And we all love birds, right? People don’t really like cows, for some reason, so it’s different when you talk about leather. But birds are beautiful, and it is time to bring this issue to the attention of the industry.”
A million ostriches are killed each year by some estimates, with the South African ostrich industry releasing 62,000 tonnes of carbon-equivalent emissions. Feathered angel wings have been a signature look on the catwalk at Victoria’s Secret for decades – the animal rights group Peta has claimed that one single fashion show used 620,000 feathers from chickens, pheasants and ostriches.
Good news for McCartney came on the same day as she showed her Peace and Dove collection: Victoria’s Secret confirmed this week that its show on 15 October would feature faux feathers only.
Earlier this year, Copenhagen fashion week, a leader in ethical fashion, announced a ban on feathers for all designers showing there.
In front of an audience that included the former Chanel creative director Virginie Viard, wearing a Stella McCartney faux-fur bomber jacket, the show began with Helen Mirren narrating a new manifesto: “A world where there are only planes in the sky, and no song in the trees, will never make the heart soar.”
There were doves hand-painted on to silk blouses and dresses, and Prince’s When Doves Cry on the soundtrack. McCartney’s strategy has long been to find realistic dupes of leather, fur and animal skins so that glamour need not be compromised.
There were pastel minidresses in this collection so realistically feathery that the models looked like newly hatched chicks, albeit very leggy and in stilettos. But these were made from peekaboo regenerated nylon, knitted into a powder-puff texture to resemble feathers, but produced from recycled plastic bottle tops. Jewellery with dove motifs was made from recycled electronics waste.
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Other creatures got a look in, too. There was a new animal-cruelty-free handbag, the Ryder, which has a gently undulating top zip inspired by the slope of a horse’s spine. (McCartney’s longstanding handbag bestseller, the Falabella, was named after her favourite pony.)
A “crocodile” Ryder was made from apple-waste vegan leather lined with hemp. “What makes the Stella woman – or any Stella human – different, is being curious about the world, and looking at fashion from a different perspective,” the designer said after the show. “It’s time to take a bird’s eye view.”