I love fashion. I have always loved high fashion photography, therefore, I've always loved fashion magazines.
Only since becoming vegan have I realised how much the fashion industry RELIES on animals for its glamour.
For instance, I received my subscription to Australian Harper's Bazaar* in the mail yesterday. Staring out at me from the cover is a seductive Marilyn-esque Nicole Kidman, plopped on a bed of fur, draped in pearls and swathed in silk. Hell, even the botox in her face was tested on animals.
I open the magazine to see cosmetics (tested on animals, probably including animal ingredients), more silk and leather in the advertisements, a sample of a perfume probably containing animal ingredients and tested on animals, another ad for pearls, more leather, more leather, more leather, more leather, (i'm not kidding), sunscreen probably tested on animals, and this is all before the Editors page! I haven't even got to the editorials yet! Once I flick through more and more leather products, I get to the saddest page of all. An advitorial spread for Hermes Paris, using PAINTED elephants swinging LEATHER handbags from their trunks. The paint is around its eyes (probably in it's eyes), on its head, on its back and on its feet. I find this so disrespectful to the poor creatures. I realise that this is probably some ancient traditional thing, to paint elephants, but this is for advertising a multi million dollar company. It makes me so sad.
It's frustrating that I can't even look at high fashion anymore without seeing mans exploitation of animals.
My dream is for one of these top end magazines to be brave enough to do a vegan edition. An even bigger dream would be a vegan fashion magazine!
But just like the television stations will never do a hardcore expose on fast food chains or the like (for fear of losing their advertising bucks), magazines will never do something so brave as a vegan edition. They wouldn't have much high end fashion left to advertise, except Stella McCartney, Natalie Portman's vegan shoe line and a few others.
*I'm not renewing my subscription when this one runs out.
Only since becoming vegan have I realised how much the fashion industry RELIES on animals for its glamour.
For instance, I received my subscription to Australian Harper's Bazaar* in the mail yesterday. Staring out at me from the cover is a seductive Marilyn-esque Nicole Kidman, plopped on a bed of fur, draped in pearls and swathed in silk. Hell, even the botox in her face was tested on animals.
I open the magazine to see cosmetics (tested on animals, probably including animal ingredients), more silk and leather in the advertisements, a sample of a perfume probably containing animal ingredients and tested on animals, another ad for pearls, more leather, more leather, more leather, more leather, (i'm not kidding), sunscreen probably tested on animals, and this is all before the Editors page! I haven't even got to the editorials yet! Once I flick through more and more leather products, I get to the saddest page of all. An advitorial spread for Hermes Paris, using PAINTED elephants swinging LEATHER handbags from their trunks. The paint is around its eyes (probably in it's eyes), on its head, on its back and on its feet. I find this so disrespectful to the poor creatures. I realise that this is probably some ancient traditional thing, to paint elephants, but this is for advertising a multi million dollar company. It makes me so sad.
It's frustrating that I can't even look at high fashion anymore without seeing mans exploitation of animals.
My dream is for one of these top end magazines to be brave enough to do a vegan edition. An even bigger dream would be a vegan fashion magazine!
But just like the television stations will never do a hardcore expose on fast food chains or the like (for fear of losing their advertising bucks), magazines will never do something so brave as a vegan edition. They wouldn't have much high end fashion left to advertise, except Stella McCartney, Natalie Portman's vegan shoe line and a few others.
*I'm not renewing my subscription when this one runs out.
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
knives2meatyou:
Interesting - like Stina I also looked you up because of a comment you made on my page and I'm glad I did. Your blog entry is really well stated and so poignant - one tends to look the other way, as it were - I guess that's the way most humans are. People are perfectly content to eat meat or wear fur so long as they don't have to think about where it came from or how it was obtained. And looking at your profile I was struck by how interesting your choices are. So I'm glad to have made your acquaintance and thanks for making me think about things I wouldn't think about ordinarily, to my discredit. I've never been a fur person, from my youth, but I still eat meat. So you've given me food for thought, to so speak. And you're from Australia too! That's my dream, to finally get to go there (I've long harbored a desire to live in Adelaide) - hopefully some day I will.
helly:
Pardon the generic message, please vote for the new owner of SGAU! Thanks 