Green Fur? Green Wash!

TheDiscerningBrute — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:07:54 +0000

Fur is Green? More like Fur is Greed. The fur industry is jealous of the environmental movement. Green with envy, in fact. This has resulted in the Greenwashing award of the decade going to the Canada Fur Council's "Fur is Green" campaign, which includes a spiffy website, a Facebook group, and amazing rationalizations that make historical comparisons impossible to ignore! There are so many ways to expose the ridiculousness behind their hairy agenda that I don't know which one to start with! Ok, ok, I'll start with the one where they call people wearing fur "Environmental Activists". So Let me get this straight - according to the Fur Is Green Facebook group, if you are a compassionate person who wants animals to be able to live out their lives in protected habitats and doesn't want them to be bludgeoned, trapped, or drowned in the wild, or vaginally electrocuted, gassed, or to spend their entire lives in small cages, you are a "fanatic". But if you rationalize those things under the guise of "supporting thousands of jobs", while avoiding looking at or openly addressing the actual acts and images associated with fur production, and indulging in toxically peserved luxury products, you are an "environmentalist"? Therefore, according to the CFC, compassion and empathy is fanatical. Fur Is Toxic. Producing a fur coat from ranch-raised animals takes more than 15 times as much energy as it does to produce a faux-fur coat! In addition, runoff waste from fur farms destroys waterways, and the toxic chemicals used (ammonia, chromates, bleaching agents, coal tar derivatives, hydrogen peroxide, formaldehyde, sulphides) to preserve the skins are also harming the environment. The fur industry has even lobbied governments in the Great Lakes area to maintain low water-quality standards—so that fur farms won’t be identified as major polluters. Wild trapping is no better, indiscriminately catching whatever wanders into the trap - cats, dogs, endangered species - who are all thrown away after a miserable death. I will be breaking a sacred rule of abuser-denial by making a historical comparison here (and they will be outraged at the audacity of my comparison): It was only 60 years ago that Ford Motor Company rationalized using Holocaust slave labor (my relatives) for car production. Yes, I know beavers are not Jews, and yes, I know that the Holocaust is not the fur industry - but the rationalizations used are the same. How could something so clearly terrible happen under our grandparents watch? Social atrocities don't happen magically. They happen when people making money justify horrifying circumstances thoroughly enough to make them seem like "business as usual". The rationalizers avoid being compared to their predecessors at any cost. And they will continue to avoid these comparisons. It seems there are always people who find ways to rationalize cruelty if there is money to be made - but to claim that your cruel and toxic industry is a workers' advocacy, environmental, and "humane" industry is total doublethink! The "FUR It's MY CHOICE" poster from furisgreen.com showcases the crux of the disconnect. Anyone who has a dog or a cat knows that animals are more than fiber-production-units. What about the individual animal's choice to avoid sources of pain and torment? To roam free and raise their young? Clearly, that point can never be addressed. It's pretty obvious that the purpose of this campaign is a desperate attempt from a dying industry to quell the doubts of inquisitive potential customers. The problem? The truth is hard to cover up. Thankfully there are brilliant designers like Calvin Klein, Charlotte Ronson, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Benjamin Cho, Duckie Brown, Eddie Bauer, Guess?, H&M, Tommy Hillfiger, John Varvatos, Levi's, Paul Frank, and people like Tim Gunn , Todd Oldham, Martha Stewart, Ellen Degeners and scores of other indistry professionals who are outspokenly anti-fur.

Judicious Gentlemanswear

TheDiscerningBrute — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 23:41:08 +0000

1. Fashion Week: Spring 09 Menswear Spring '09 will be full of stripes, neutrals with pops of color, and above-the-ankle pants. Band of Outsiders offered casual, laceless loafers, 80's inspired kid-hipster cuts, and a sense of playing film-noir dress-up. The DKNY man was mostly tie-less and laid back, wearing canvass sneaks. Ducky Brown was inspired by bike messengers and swimmers' spandex, Lacoste's man in red simply showcased polos and cuffed, fitted slacks. Marc Jacobs' double-belts, volume, and stripes followed the trends this season. Patrik Ervell toyed around with glam rock-a-billy, Rag & Bone just went straight for the many schools of punk, and Robert Gell er took us to eastern Europe, with Gypsy-softened, military cuts. What we know about menswear is that there is little flexibility (at least in comparison to womens' fashion) concerning garments. There are things that define men - suits, ties, knits, hats, waistcoats, jackets, slacks, and certain accessories. In the world of menswear, the leather jacket is almost as defining to male gender as the Bloody Steak is in the world of cuisine. Aside from the perpetual re-modification of tailoring, cuts, and fits - most menswear designers are lost in a cyclical pattern of rotating colors, prints, eras, and fibers. Surprisingly, it is easy to use organic cotton instead of conventional cotton. It is easy to find alternatives to leather and fur. Thanks to designers like Jaanj, we know that ties do not need to be made with silk to be luxurious or silky. Same for knits and wool, yet designers keep pumping out the same old thing - imagining that somehow this is iconoclastic. Menswear is dying because of logistics and lazy creatures of habit. It is dying due to a lack of vision and a defiant unwillingness to adapt to a landbase in crisis. Designers could use ethical textile suppliers, forcing those who continue to shit on us and get paid for it to change or vanish. Phillip Lim's grotesquely excessive snakeskin shoes, and so-over keffeyah-inspired scarf seemed useless on the runway. I'd rather see the actual living snake (it is much more beautiful) - or a tribute to Palestinean solidarity that hasn't been bastardized. Hillfiger's bone and white suits could easily be made with organic fibers. Designers are just starting to realize that the bubble most of them have found tolerance in - where snakes are shoes and cows are jackets and raccoon-dogs are collars - is becoming more and more difficult to cajole consumers with, whose broadening awareness begs for well-made, compassionate garments and accessories, and exposes the absent referent. The problem goes even deeper - in a culture of mainstream fashion 'journalists' and writers who lack the knowledge to create a critical discourse concerning textiles, labor, and functioning ecosystems - many simply fail to take into account what the clothes are actually made of, how that happened, and what the effects are. Instead, when we do hear about fabric - the only barometer it is measured by is that of outdated and disfunctional ideas of luxury and evocation of wealth. There are a handful of ethical designers recognized in the mainstream - Trovata for instance - who will be selling their garments from a vegetable powered bus. Others are Organic by John Patrick, Turk & Taylor, NSF, and Linda Loudermilk. They are almost always written off as 'cooky'. More to come from spring '09. 2. Culturata Organics

What can improve upon a long family history in fine italian tailoring? Organic cotton. When in Rome... wear classic, tailored, organic shirts made by expert craftsmen. Culturata Organics is an emerging company with strict environmental and ethical standards.

The Discerning Brute: fashion, food & etiquette for the ethically handsome man » tommy hillfiger

Green Fur? Green Wash!

Judicious Gentlemanswear