Even man-made, Schiaparelli’s work was particularly disturbing for its impudence to the tens of thousands of vocal commenters across the brand’s Instagram posts. It’s embarrassing,” the words flowed out in ferocious anger. One user briefly summed up his feelings: Bad taste! “The surreal leopard has become synonymous with the cruelty that kills the real thing.
But when the fury ensued as supermodels recreated exotic skins and the fury ensued, one nuance was lost in the fuss. Roseberry’s choice to showcase an overly literal interpretation of its iconic source material makes all other brands’ petroleum-based faux furs look inadvertently tame by comparison. It’s gone. How easy it is for brands to write flirtatious captions about their next drop of faux fur coat: Hey, at least we don’t have faces to make you feel offended.
In this swiftness to share warnings about how these works represent or glorify hunter-hunting, the avid Take Haver explores the real harm, both environmental and ethical, that lies at the heart of faux fur production. I cannot explain.
A maker of plastic fur alternatives made primarily from polyester, a non-biodegradable fiber expected to hit $174.7 billion in sales by 2032, is seeking sympathy from an enthusiastic crowd. Messages can now be reconstructed. Yet within the false self there are traces of the true self.
The surrealism of aesthetic experiments such as those done at Schiaparelli diverts our gaze from the way we consume other animal products, such as cowhide, in fashion. This also directly clashes with farming practices in factories in the food industry.
Instead of introspection, reflexive responses on social media purely look at superficial images as the primary source of the most brutal acts. The fake lion’s head is nothing more than a surreal imitation of the safari symbol and could directly “induce risky behavior and glorify both his trophy hunting and animal violence.”
The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that the true core of the darkness was telling ourselves we could buy our way to sustainability in the first place. Is there an ethical way to wear it?
