The Balmain
show, which is part of the Paris Fashion Week | Pascal Le Segretain/Getty
Images
France’s haute couture tries to go green
Luxury fashion brands accused of paying lip service to
sustainability.
By LOUISE
GUILLOT 3/1/20, 4:00 PM CET Updated 3/2/20, 4:37 AM CET
At Paris
Fashion Week, some of the industry’s most famous designers are trying to get
back on trend.
Fashion
shows aren’t known for their sustainable footprint. But as the annual event
draws to a close in the French capital, it’s hoping to leave a slightly smaller
mark on the city as a symbol of a wider effort to turn the industry greener.
French
President Emmanuel Macron on Monday invited a hundred fashion designers to the
Elysée to emphasize that the industry needs to become more sustainable —
reportedly arguing that as the country that gave haute couture its name, France
must lead by example.
The
Federation for Haute Couture and Fashion, which organizes Paris Fashion Week,
promised that this year the show running through Tuesday would cut out
single-use plastics, create reusable sets and use electric bus shuttles to
reduce carbon emissions.
The
industry is known for being one of the world’s most polluting sectors, given
the raw materials and chemicals involved in producing synthetic fibers as well
as the need for water-intensive crops like cotton. Fashion houses often argue
their impact is relatively limited because they produce a small number of items
and only two collections a year — compared with six or more in the fast fashion
industry.
French
designer Gaëlle Constantini launched her brand 10 years ago, famously creating
new clothes out of second-hand fabrics.
However, a
recent study by the nonprofit Changing Markets Foundation singled out a number
of luxury brands, including France’s Christian Dior, for their lack of
transparency and commitment to sustainably source fabrics.
“Our
findings show that many brands and retailers are still paying lip service and
making lofty promises, rather than actually delivering transformative change,”
said Urska Trunk, campaign advisor at the foundation and one of the authors of
the study.
Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Jean-Paul Gaultier
and Hermès did not respond to requests to comment for this article.
Leading by
example
Some
designers aren’t waiting for haute couture to make its move.
French
designer Gaëlle Constantini — a household name in sustainable fashion —
launched her brand 10 years ago, famously creating new clothes out of
second-hand fabrics including discarded curtains from the French Senate.
“We crossed
a point where sustainability in the fashion industry is not something marginal
anymore, as it was two or three years ago, but is now becoming a norm,” said
Thomas Ebélé, co-founder of the fashion eco-label SloWeAre.
Only about
13 percent of the material used to manufacture clothing worldwide is recycled
into new clothes| Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images
But still
about 13 percent of the material used to manufacture clothing worldwide is
recycled into new clothes, according to a study by the Ellen MacArthur
Foundation.
At France’s
fashion schools, the focus on sustainability is growing. The Institut Français
de la Mode based in Paris launched a sustainability professorship in November,
and runs courses teaching students how to minimize waste while designing
clothes, how to use recycled textiles or how to integrate environmental
considerations into their business models.
“In the
past years, we’ve seen an evolution of the topics students choose for their thesis
… with more and more working on a topic related to sustainable development,”
said Andrée-Anne Lemieux, the current holder of the professorship at the
institute. “About 80 percent of the young people who apply [to the institute]
mentioned sustainability [in the fashion industry] as one of their concerns.”
The
question for many is how far and how fast the big brands are willing to move.
François-Henri
Pinault, CEO of the luxury group Kering — which owns 15 brands including Yves
Saint Laurent, Gucci and Balenciaga — last year drafted the Fashion Pact, a
voluntary pledge for companies to reduce their carbon footprint. Companies
ranging from Adidas and Nike to fashion houses Chanel and Hermès signed up.
François-Henri
Pinault, CEO of the luxury group Kering, drafted a voluntary pledge for
companies to reduce their carbon footprint | Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
But Ebélé
described the pact as “a form of greenwashing,” adding that “it lacks ambition
compared to what was ratified with the Paris Agreement, for instance.”
Campaign
group Ethique sur l'Etiquette (Ethics on the Tag) criticized that the pact was
nonbinding and had been drafted by the industry itself.
“We would
like to remind Emmanuel Macron that his role is not to delegate to companies
the task of writing their own regulation; it is precisely the role of public
authorities to impose rules accompanied by sanctions, to force them to respect
fundamental rights and the environment,” the group wrote at the time.
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