Copenhagen Fashion Week has announced it will ban exotic leathers and feathers from its 2025 shows, raising the bar on sustainability in fashion.
Copenhagen will be the first high-profile event in history to take the groundbreaking step of banning exotic leathers and feathers from its collections, signalling a revolution in high fashion that follows a ban on fur at fashion weeks in 2022. This has shifted the focus of runway fashion from style and luxury to compassion, ethics and environmental protection.
The fashion of today has become the fashion of the future.
In recent years, the use of fur has become increasingly vulgar, leading many companies to switch to feathers. As a result, feathers have become a trend. But are feathers and skins better than fur? The short answer is no. The process of harvesting feathers and exotic skins is just as horrific as the process of harvesting fur, and the animals suffer mentally and physically. Crocodiles and alligators endure horrific suffering and have their 70-year lifespan shortened by three years in order to have their skin used in fashion products such as shoes, bags, and belts. The situation is even worse for ostriches, the bird most commonly exploited for their feathers. The majority of ostrich farms are concentrated in South Africa, where ostriches are unregulated and killed by being stunned with electric bolts, hung upside down, shackled, or bled to death.
Over the past few years, top fashion brands like Burberry and Chanel have pushed to ban exotic leather, with Chanel phasing out exotic leather for Pre-Fall 2019 and Burberry following suit in 2022. But exotic leathers and feathers have long escaped the stigma of fur because they are less graphic in appearance.
“It’s really hard for people to comprehend the reality that crocodiles and snakes are absolutely sentient, just like foxes and minks,” Emma Håkansson, founding director of Collective Fashion Justice, told The Guardian.
When consumers see models strutting down the runway, they don’t think of feathers and leather, or associate them with style and glamour.
Copenhagen Fashion Week’s sustainability requirements, due to come into force on January 1, 2025, have set a new standard for environmental requirements. From now on, to show their collections, brands will have to meet the required requirements. However, these conditions are not one-size-fits-all, but collaborative and strategic.
Fashion houses can participate in a series of webinars that will explain the requirements in more detail, as well as receive tools and strategic consulting to set new sustainability milestones, track progress and measure impact.The framework has been adopted by several national and Nordic partners (Copenhagen International Fashion Fair, Norwegian Fashion Hub and Oslo Runway) who will implement these requirements over the coming years, highlighting Copenhagen’s belief that environmental, social and cultural sustainability can only be achieved through industry unity.
As the most highly anticipated events on the fashion calendar, these moves will position Copenhagen as a capital of sustainable fashion, driving a revolution in sustainability and compassion across the fashion industry.
