Somehow they should have seen it coming. Roughly three months ago Greenpeace published an in-depth research entitled "Toxic Threads: The Big Fashion Stitch-Up" about the impact toxic chemicals employed in the textile industry are having on our planet and health. The results of analyses carried out on 141 items of clothing purchased in 29 countries were pretty bleak, showing the presence of toxic phtalates and other potentially hazardous industrial chemicals across a number of the products tested.
During New York Fashion Week, clean-up Greenpeace crews challenged four major fashion brands - Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel and Hermès, all brands that had ranked at the bottom of a recent Greenpeace survey of environmental policies - to adopt forest friendly and toxic free policies by decorating the windows of their boutiques with images of forest destruction and pollution.
Yesterday morning Milan woke up with the main streets in the city centre invaded by ‘clean graffiti’, temporary images and messages urging luxury brands to implement policies on Zero Deforestation and Zero Discharge of toxic substances along their supply chain and products.
Then, just an hour before the official Milan Fashion Week shows started, Greenpeace activists threw down the gauntlet to the fashion industry with an acrobatic stunt.
A model walked down the tower of the Castello Sforzesco turned into a vertical runway covered with a green carpet printed with the image of a glove. At the end of her walk she symbolicall threw her dueling green gauntlet to the 15 fashion houses included in the Greenpeace survey.
The latter actually provides very interesting results: Greenpeace asked 15 luxury fashion brands to answer 25 questions about their production processes and policies, deforestation and the toxic pollution of our Planet’s water resources.
According to the results, only Valentino got a green badge as the company committed (at the beginning of February 2013) to implementing Zero Deforestation policies for leather and packaging purchasing and Zero Discharge policies for textile production by 2020; Roberto Cavalli didn't even provide concrete answers to the survey and did not make any commitments.
Armani, Dior, Gucci and Louis Vuitton seem to have Zero Deforestation policies for what regards leather and pulp and paper purchasing; Ermenegildo Zegna, Versace and Ferragamo only have pulp and paper purchasing policies in place.
Alberta Feretti, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Hermès, Prada and Trussardi didn't even reply to the numerous requests from Greenpeace, refusing to share any information.
The Greenpeace Fashion Duel runway at the Castello Sforzesco wasn't the only demo against fashion taking place in Milan yesterday: somewhere else in via della Spiga, animal rights protesters organised a demo against denim sandblasting, the cause of fatal lung diseases among many workers.
If, rather than joining fashion week, you want to actively join the protests, you can easily do so by throwing down your green gauntlet on Greenpeace's Fashion Duel site or by shooting your own green gauntlet action videos (you can find some hilarious examples on You Tube under the title “Io sfido la moda” - I challenge fashion; have a look at the final video embedded in this post to get an idea and a big laugh at the fashion industry...).
Fashionistas with a bulimic mania for clothes, high-profile fashion bloggers with endless wardrobes and poseurs with a passion for furs are warned: the duel is on in Milan and the gloves are off not just with luxury brands.
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