Nature is beautiful and unique – no one can argue with that statement and fashion acknowledges that. Thus, fashion gets inspired by nature all the time, usually to the extent of including that piece of nature in the making. So basically we are talking about the use of leather, fur, feather, flowers and leaves, vines and other plant materials…but where the use of plant materials to fabricate our beautiful fashion creations are sung praises and hymns of adoration, the use of animal based materials are not always as forgivable or encouraged. Hence from leather we see the move to pleather, fur to faux fur -basically you get what that means, mimic the animals with synthetic versions!
While the move to using synthetics is a controversial one because it puts you in the awful situation of making a choice between killing the environment or the animal, bear in mind that the question is actually one more concerned with ‘which do you kill first’ and ‘which is more brutal a method of murder’.
Often enough people choose synthetics not because of their concern for the blatant animal cruelty but because of the budgetary constraints. Environmentalists are then mistakenly assumed to avoid synthetics due to their direct and obvious effect on the environment.
But fact of the matter is, choosing real animal based products aren’t exactly the better deal. For one thing, the animals obviously dies a senseless and painful death (anyone who dares ask if leather is animal friendly obviously has no notion about what leather is) so there’s no such thing as ‘animal friendly’ fur, leather, scales or feather. And while no synthetic product’s production is going to be mark free on the environment, neither is the ‘all natural’ product.
Leather processing is one of the most toxic industries around! So again it all boils back down to the same question – to leather or to pleather, to go synthetic or stick to the real deal? Well it’s hard to find a win win situation in this case because the one with the least effect is neither, its plant based fashion. But if you find yourself in a situation where you had to pick between synthetic leather or leather (and other such product) then I would say even as an environment lover myself, go for the synthetics.
I haven’t gone out of my mind, but the fact is there are polyurethane pleather available these days – which means less effect on the environment. And I have faith in technology that soon scientists will be able to perfect the use of vegetable oil to make polyurethane and then we will rest easy using pleather knowing the animals are safe and so is the environment. For now my conscience rest easy knowing I didn’t directly induce the senseless and cruel death of a defenseless animal and I’m minimizing the effect of my fashion lifestyle on the environment.
