Paris fashion week braces for climate protests as star designer stays home

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PARIS: Women’s fashion week in Paris kicked off amid climate and animal rights protests and the disappearance of its biggest star designer, Virgil Abloh.

Animal rights group PETA also took to the streets before the first show, denouncing fashion’s love affair with leather, saying tanneries are among the world’s worst polluters.

Workers poured “toxic clay” over their heads in front of the Eiffel Tower to hammer home that “leather is a dirty business”.

PETA’s Marie-Morgane Jeanneau told AFP, “The leather industry produces hazardous toxic waste and is responsible for the deaths of more than a billion animals annually to produce fashion accessories.”

Another rights group, One Voice, released an undercover video of “appalling conditions” at a mink farm in France, where they said five animals were kept in each small, dirty cage.

Earlier this month Extinction Rebellion activists called for London Fashion Week to be canceled entirely due to a “climate emergency” and damage to the industry.

Other protests are likely during the nine-day marathon of spring-summer shows in Paris — by far the world’s biggest and most important fashion week.

But there were signs that the environmental message was getting through.

Many major luxury brands are ditching fur, and 150 brands led by Chanel, Hermès and French luxury giant Kering — owners of Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga — signed a “fashion pact” last month. In order to reduce their environmental pollution. The effect

While the largest conglomerate, LVMH, did not, Dior — which is owned by the group — made sustainable development the focus of its show on Tuesday.

The 160 trees that will be the centerpiece of his “Inclusive Garden” show will later be replanted in three new urban gardens in the French capital.

Paris, however, will be without Abloh, the ultra-dynamic American streetwear guru behind Off-White, who has managed to make headlines on both the men’s and women’s runways over the past year.

The 38-year-old – who designs Louis Vuitton’s menswear line as well as works with Nike and Ikea – has been forced to put his frenetic globe-trotting schedule on hold due to “health concerns”.

After his doctor advised him not to travel, Abloh will remain at home in Chicago, where his work has been extended past the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art after breaking box office records.

“Being busy isn’t getting the job done,” the architect-turned-designer admitted to Vogue in a candid entry into an industry where creative burnout is a taboo.

Abula’s Paris Off White show will go ahead on Thursday without him.

Last week Paris’ other big new star, Damna Gvasalia, left Vetements, the rebel uber-hip brand where she made her name as fashion’s bad boy.

But Gvasalia remains at Balenciaga, the venerable Parisian luxury label he has also shaken up, the brand told AFP.

Kmente Kumhicum, who cut his teeth at Balenciaga, will debut his eponymous label in Paris just hours before another Korean newcomer, Rokh, presents his second collection.

Kumhkem — known for her use of giant bows — has already caught the eye of Hollywood star and fashion icon Elle Fanning, who wore pink to the premiere of her new film “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.” was wearing a colored transparent dress belted with a giant bow. “Last month.

Her show — called “Buy If You Can” — combines the cheema, a long traditional Korean skirt, with a high school uniform, she told AFP. I am spiced with an extra touch of “provocative”.

Fellow Korean Rook Hwang, who is the brainchild of former Celine creator Phoebe Philo, shares the British designer’s savvy modern chic.

After deconstructing the classic wardrobe staple of the trench coat and suit at his first Paris rock show, this time he’s going all out with a show he calls a “field trip.”

The other newcomer is Japanese designer Maiko Kuroguchi, who is bringing her Mami label to Pari, eight years after leaving “King of Plates” Issey Miyake.