LEATHER IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY

The leather handbag – once a coming-of-age gift that held almost as much significance as a wedding dress – has been swept up in fast fashion’s relentless pursuit of the microtrend.

Nowadays, the leather handbag is no longer a bag for life. To luxury fashion houses, leather goods are the rocket fuel of their huge expansion over the past decade. To high street fashion brands they represent an unrivalled cash cow. To consumers they’re just another disposable fashion product. The fact that they are made from the skin of an animal is incidental.

Leather can be made from cows, pigs, goats, and sheep; exotic animals such as alligators and kangaroos; and even dogs and cats. Because leather is normally not labelled, you never really know where it finds its origin. Half of the global leather industry is carried out in developing countries, where the pressure is on to produce more and for that, animals and humans are being misused. In developing countries, no animal welfare laws are existent or not enforced. The result is, that animals get mistreated and harmed. The animals suffer from extreme crowding and deprivation, as well as castration, branding and taildocking - all without any pain killers for the animals.

Furthermore, it is a common misconception that leather is simply a so-called “by-product” of the meat production. It is the most important “coproduct” of the meat industry, since animal skin represents a significant portion of the income made within the meat industry. Therefore, leather drives the demand for more animals to be raised and killed. Thousands of animals die in a crucial way for the sake of fashion every year.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES The leather industry shares responsibility for all environmental destruction caused by the meat industry.

But also the production of leather itself hurts animals, the environment, and the workers who manufacture it.

Especially the tanning and dyeing process of leather is extremely unsustainable. Environmental pollution, as well as health isses are caused by the toxins used for the tanning process of leather to preserve the animal skin and the bleaching and dyeing of the skin later. The toxic ground water near tanneries causes severe health problems for the residents in surrounding areas. Statistics show, that people who are working in the tanneries have a 20% to 50% chance becoming sick of cancer due to the dangerous toxins used in tanning solutions and dyes.

It is time to look for an ecofriendly alternative, which does not harm our planet.

HIGH FASHION A/W 2019 RUNWAY

PRADA M SEDDIQ