Beauty With Scars: How Contemporary Fashion Trends Correlate With the Use of Natural Materials

Disclaimer: The footage below may shock viewers due to the animal cruelty shown.

The Ethics of Fashion: Natural Materials Like Fur, Exotic Leather and Feathers

Fur, exotic leather and feather elements in clothing once symbolized status — now they only provoke controversy. Despite fashion's evolution and new materials, animals still pay with their lives for some of them, while fashion industry leaders remain divided between tradition and ethics.

Read more about animal-derived materials obtained through cruel methods in DeTalks' special project on fashion and style.

Real Beauty — Hidden Cruelty

Every year, people kill around 100 million animals: sheep are mutilated for wool and skin, goats are abused for cashmere and mohair, birds have handfuls of feathers ripped out, and small animals are kept caged for life before being killed for fur. Python, crocodile and lizard skin is obtained just as brutally — feathers are torn from live birds in handfuls, or the birds are killed for the stylish material.

Yes — regardless of the material type or its origin, if an animal is involved in the process — cruelty is involved.

The Price of Exotic Reptile Leather

Bags, boots and belts made of python, crocodile or lizard leather are exquisite accessories reptiles pay for with their lives. They live in filthy, cramped cages, and the end of such a life comes with electric shocks — applied for the shine of the future product.

A PETA investigator who visits python breeding farms in Thailand told CBS MoneyWatch that workers inflate the snakes' bodies with water so they expand and their skin comes off more easily.

PETA Asia investigators have also visited a farm where thousands of crocodiles are kept in pits filled with foul-smelling green water. Workers there hacked at the crocodiles' necks with metal blades — one reptile kept moving for more than 20 minutes while being skinned alive.

Yes — according to Dr. Warwick, a knife blow to the neck severs or severely damages crocodiles' spinal cords, causing paralysis and, likely, severe pain — but not death. In this state, they can remain alive for over 90 minutes after such horrific injuries.

Living Conditions Before Becoming Trendy Clothing

Geese, ducks and ostriches are plucked alive, often leaving wounds and fractures — it is exactly why PETA spoke at Paris and London Fashion Week, urging the industry to abandon feathers as a material.

Animals on fur farms spend their entire lives in cramped, filthy wire cages, while farmers use the cheapest and cruelest killing methods, including suffocation, electrocution, gas and poison.

After slaughter and skinning, fur and feathers are treated with a mixture of toxic chemicals to keep them from rotting in the buyer's closet. That's why various salts, as well as ammonia, formaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide and other bleaches, are used for preservation and dyeing. As a result, the material is no longer biodegradable. At the same time, the toxins can be absorbed through the skin and remain in the human body for over 20 years, causing chronic health problems.

Moreover, the environmental impact of producing natural farm-raised materials is amplified when all aspects are taken into account. Indeed, it can be up to 10 times higher than that of producing synthetic alternatives.

Conscious Manufacturers

Despite the numerous cases of natural material use, the number of conscious brands that have officially banned fur from their collections keeps growing every year. Among them are Gucci, Burberry, Chanel, Versace, Prada, Coach, Vivienne Westwood and Ralph Lauren. Many countries have also partially or completely banned fur farms, and some have even banned the sale of fur products.

In contrast to natural materials, ethical and innovative alternatives are emerging: leather made from mushroom mycelium, pineapple leaves, cactus, as well as plastic-free faux fur.

Cruelty-free fashion may soon become not just the future, but a reality. Yet we need to act now, because the animals who suffer cannot speak up for themselves. But conscious people can do it for them.