FAUX ADVOCACY: PETA defends animal-head dresses worn at Paris Couture Week amid backlash
Animal rights advocates claimed the collection promotes trophy hunting, which is the act of hunting animals for sport and keeping the heads of their bodies as trophies.
AMBER RAIKEN: The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has defended Kylie Jenner and her lion head dress, which she wore at Schiaparelli’s Haute Couture fashion show over the weekend. The non-profit organisation issued a statement about Schiaparelli’s gown, which featured a lifelike bust of a lion’s head on Jenner’s torso… These remarks also come after the brand faced widespread backlash from critics such as Carrie Johnson suggesting the collection promotes “trophy hunting”, which is the act of hunting animals for sport and keeping the heads of their bodies as trophies.
PETA’s President, Ingrid Newkirk, praised the fashion house for its “fabulously innovative” animal head dresses, which were also worn by Irina Shayk and Naomi Campbell. “Kylie, Naomi and Irina’s looks celebrate the beauty of wild animals and may be a statement against trophy hunting, in which lions and wolves are torn apart to satisfy human egotism,” she told Page Six Style. While Shayk walked the runway in a gown nearly identical to the one worn by Jenner, Campbell modelled a black faux-fur coat with a wolf’s head. Model Shalom Harlow wore a strapless snow leopard tube dress featuring a realistic bust of the animal’s head.
Newkirk also praised Schiaparelli for its creative use of faux-fur throughout the entire collection, adding: “We encourage everyone to stick with 100 per cent cruelty-free designs that showcase human ingenuity and prevent animal suffering.” She also encouraged Jenner and her peers to “extend this creativity to exclude sheep shorn bloody for wool and silkworms boiled alive in their cocoons”. PETA… statements came as the outfits have received backlash on social media. Some critics are accusing Schiaparelli of encouraging the trophy hunting of animals featured in the collection…
Schiaparelli described the animal busts as “faux-taxidermy” and told the publication they were made with foam resin and other man-made materials. The busts are meant to serve as a “reminder there is no such thing as heaven without hell; there is no joy without sorrow; there is no ecstasy of creation without the torture of doubt,” according to Schiaparelli’s creative director Daniel Roseberry…
Along with Ms Johnson, many others took issue with the use of the animal heads as accessories. “This normalisation of trophy hunting is so wrong. Using the natural beauty of wildlife to ‘shock’ and stir controversy. How sad and empty,” one person wrote on Twitter, while another added: “As much as I love couture, promoting animal slaughter (fake or not) and calling it high fashion is ultimately a grand faux-pas of the season”. SOURCE…
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