PINNACLE: Reinvent The Icon, Volume 2

II E

UM L VO

Synthetic hair bodice: Shoplifter and Edda for VPL by Victoria Bartlett Necklace & ring: LaRuicci Sequin bodysuit: VPL by Victoria Bartlett

and battle-cries

nonsense a woefully ordinary,

luxury and

Animals on fur farms are often anally or vaginally electrocuted to death.

Animals caught in traps sometimes chew off their own limbs to escape, but later bleed to death.

It takes 40 mink to make one coat.

Rabbits scream when being slaughtered.

Y M O T A AN

OF

Animals have been documented being skinned while fully conscious

Fur farmers use the cheapest and cruelest killing methods available, including suffocation, electrocution, gas, and poison.

The truth is often too horrible for us to believe, so many of us lie to ourselves.

We deny that their cries even exist, because if their cries did exist, they would be impossible to ignore and it would mean we would have to change.

Truth

Capelet in recycled PET: Ashton Michael Black Label, Necklace & Earring: LaRuicci

iconic

glamour

stylish

classic humane* Fur is not a “personal choice” issue

The people making money from fur would like you to believe that this is simply a consumer choice issue.

Sadly, choosing between a fur coat and a cruelty-free coat is not the same as choosing between red or pink nail-polish. Nor is it simply a difference of opinion, where the only factors surrounding the issue are you and your opinion vs. me and my opinion.When we consider the fact that there is a perspective conveniently left out of that equation, and systematically invalidated (that of the animal whose very life and body are at stake, and whose willto-live and desire to be physically and socially wild, is ignored), the “choice” becomes startlingly clear.

fur is a lie

The fur industry is a money making enterprise. It is perpetuated by manipulative, multimillion dollar marketing campaigns that target magazine editors, stylists, fashion students, designers, and fashion consumers. The New York Times recently reported on this.Yet the industry continues to peddle the myth that fur represents luxury, wealth, taste, and class - and they have gone so far as to call fur “eco-friendly”, and even exploit indigenous people’s traditions to accommodate their arrogant, greedy and frivolous use of animals.

*

Canada’s annual commercial seal hunt is the largest commercial hunt of marine mammals on the planet. The seals killed and skinned (up to 42% while possibly still conscious, according to independent veterinary examiners), and the sealers fail to ensure animals are dead in 66% of cases, according to a 2007 study by an international panel of veterinary and zoology experts. Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Panama and Slovenia have either ended their trade in seal products, or announced their intentions to do so. The US banned its trade in seal products in 1972.

Actual words the fur industry uses in its marketing campaigns to describe itself

A Fashionista’s Ode to Faux Fur

by J.M. Somers

I love animals and design equally - OK, I love animals more - and I can honestly say that I’d be a faux-fur fan even if I didn’t care about animal welfare.

Fur is undeniably beautiful - the way it moves with the breeze, the way it feels to the touch. It’s one of the many reasons we admire animals: they’re covered in this irresistible stuff. But the late, great fashion designer Franco Moschino said it best: “Fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people.”

Speaking practically, fur stops being beautiful when it’s removed from the living creature it was custom-designed for. Like a cut flower, its beauty stiffens and dies, literally. It’s a dead, dry pelt - and dead, dry pelts militate against fashion design, which is soft and fluid.

I would argue that faux fur is even more beautiful than the real thing. Dead pelts keep dessicating, growing stiffer and more brittle with time. This is why vintage fur coats have tears in them; the dead skin simply ages and breaks, it can’t be helped. Faux fur, on the other hand, keeps its soft suppleness. It stays young.

Because it’s made of thermally efficient synthetic fibers, faux fur is extremely warm - much more so than real fur. Instead of being heavy, as the pelts of dead animals are, faux fur is feather-light. And because it weighs less, ounce for ounce, it’s simply easier to wear.

Unlike real fur, faux drapes easily, like a fabric, and cinches into form-fitting, tres-pres-du-corps silhouettes that are eternally sexy, chic, and youthful. More than any ethical consideration, this drapeability is what appeals to fashion designers and their followers. It’s just not possible to create a truly modern, sexy garment with real

it’s just not possible to create a truly modern, sexy garment with real fur: it’s too stiff, so its design potential is severely limited.

fur: it’s too stiff, so its design potential is severely limited. At the other end of the fabric spectrum, pliant polarfleece - manufactured from recycled plastic bottles - may be the greatest invention for keeping warm, but it’s not exactly elegant. Faux fur has the thermal efficiency and softness of polarfleece with something extra: a go-anywhere sense of style.

One of my all-time favorite garments is the faux fur jacket I bought a few years ago at H&M. It’s made of indigo blue synthetic “shearling,” so it’s softly suede-like on the outside and plushly furry on the in.

It has very fitted sleeves; the “suede” belt cinches tightly; the collar may be worn up or down; all the hems are cut (not stitched) to fool the eye into thinking the jacket really is made of animal pelts. It’s the warmest garment I own - I can’t keep it on indoors because I’ll start sweating!

But for frigid, snowy days, nothing beats my cruelty-free coat. I wish I’d bought more than one that day, in every color. Why shouldn’t a girl look like she walked out of Doctor Zhivago in the dead of winter, with a full wardrobe of faux fur coats? I wish H&M would require its high-profile guest designers to create a coat with this furry fabric - what could be a more compelling fashion statement than chic young things dashing through the snow in designer faux fur?

With faux fur, cold-weather glamour is fast, easy, and cheap - yet it doesn’t look cheap. In fact, it looks quite expensive. My blue “fun fur” is dressy enough to look right at home draped over a seat at a runway show, or the opera or ballet, or wherever going casual is a no-no. Yet when it needs a cleaning, I simply toss it in the laundry machine, wash it in cold water, then hang it up to dry. That’s something you could never do with real fur.

That easy-care washability makes faux fur brilliant for decorating and home accessorizing too. Dogs and cats especially love a good cuddle on a faux-fur blanket or throw - it warms a body up like nothing else! And with faux home fashions, there’s less temptation for Fido or Fluffy to chew inappropriately, because obviously they don’t carry the scent of dead animal, as real fur and leather furnishings do. Faux-fur furnishings last longer as a result, keeping their good looks to enhance your home environment.

Accenting the fun in functional, faux fur is the fashion hound’s go-to textile. Try it on and you’ll immediately see why.

J.M. Somers is the pseudonym of a journalist and avid fashion follower whose distaste for fur was cemented during the years she worked full-time for Vogue.

Animals like mink who are kept on fur farms have been documented with untreated infections, injuries, and other horrible conditions - resulting in politicial and social outrage across Europe. 85% of animals used for their pelts are kept on fur farms. The wire mesh is often too large for their small feet, resulting in constant pain, and they live in feces, urine, and the decomposing bodies of others left to die or devoured as a result of confinementrelated cannibalism. Each mink skinned by fur farmers produces about 44 pounds of feces in his or her lifetime. That adds up to 1 million pounds of feces produced annually by U.S. mink farms alone. In order to keep it from decomposing, as it would in nature, fur is treated with toxic chemicals like salts, ammonia, formaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide, chromates and bleaching agents. In addition, while many furriers claim that the animals’ bodies are used for animal feed, documentation of waste piles at fur farms has proven otherwise. The only way fur can be green or natural is when it’s on the original owner.

In China, domesticated dogs and cats are frequently skinned for their pelts and used in garments that are sent to the United States and illegally mislabeled, or not labeled at all. On Dec. 18, 2010 President Obama signed H.R. 2480, The Truth in Fur Labeling Act, that strengthens the existing Fur Products Labeling Act, by requiring all garments made with animal fur—regardless of value—to be labeled and advertised with the correct species of animal. In a recently study from the HSUS, more than two-thirds of a nationwide sampling of fur-trimmed jackets purchased from well-known retailers and designers contained canine fur. But China is not the only place where dogs and cats are victims of the demand for fur garments. In the United States, traps set for wild animals like foxes and bobcats maim or kill countless dogs and cats each year.

Canvas Jackets: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Woven leggings in recycled PET: Aston Michael Black Label Bracelets, rings & earrings: LaRuicci Necklaces: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Studded booties: Melissa Plastic Dreams Shoulder pad shirt: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Top: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Wedge boots: Cri De Coeur

Canvas Jacket: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Bodysuit: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Necklaces: Dirty Librarian Chains, VPL by Victoria Bartlett Ring: Valerie Rubinaccio Wedge boots: Cri De Coeur Faux-fur coat: Topshop Shoes: Olsen Haus

by Anonymous First, the upfront disclaimer: I genuinely loved the glam mag for which I toiled, off and on, for a big chunk of my career. And one of the very best bits was the fantastic crew of super-talented, hilarious and impossibly chic people I worked with. But over the course of two stints, I switched beats. And once I jumped the rails from manning the beauty department to editing fashion and accessories, there were many, many layouts that got plopped on my desk that filled my little critter-loving eyes with tears.

There are several reasons why major American fashion magazines promote real fur – both in the front-of-book and in the multi-page well portfolios – and most of those reasons, sadly, boil down to cash money. In the strictest terms, it is as follows: Advertisers sometimes want to sell fur, and advertising supports the magazine.

Without those precious ad dollars, which are increasingly hard to come by for print vehicles, no one on either side of the fence (edit or business) collects a paycheck.

That isn’t news; even non-industry types know that. But where it gets tricky, and murky, and I think uncool, are situations in which the true marquéename stylists, who may or may not be on staff at the magazine, are essentially double-dipping by simultaneously shooting all the big ad campaigns. You better believe that if Stylist X has Hot Shot Designer as an outside client, Hot Shot Designer’s editorial credits will shoot through the roof. Oh, and by the way, that also happens with Big Bucks Brand clients that Stylist X would otherwise never dream of including in a well story. (Look for the socks credits, say, or an innocuous little T-shirt or tank plopped under a jacket.)

Thus, if either Hot Shot Designer or Big Bucks Brand happens to show a lot of fur in a given season, a lot of fur will, without question, find its way into the pages.

So those are the two big monetary reasons behind the magazine / fur machinery: Ad revenue and highly lucrative moonlighting gigs.

And now we arrive at a few other big issues, which I’ll broadly break down into Trends + Bandwagons, Supply and Personal Preferences.

First up, Trends + Bandwagons: Stylists and market editors have a job to do, and that job is to cover the sartorial waterfront and distill it in a way that supports the vision of the magazine. If real fur is crawling all over the catwalks – and it most definitely waxes and wanes - it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to pretend that isn’t happening. Conversely, it just so happens that fall 2010 was a banner season for faux fur; happily, it got major play.

The Bandwagon thing is a little more insidious. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of groupthink in fashion. And if a fur-loving designer has been anointed by the cool kids, every single stylist – even those who may be personally opposed to fur - will clamor to shoot those clothes. That’s why the same bedraggled samples ping-pong from set to set all over the globe. (Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of panicked assistants completely freaking out because they couldn’t get “Look 17” from Reykjavik to Buenos Aires by 9 a.m. on Tuesday.)

I feel like I’m harshing on the big-league stylists, and for that I’m sorry; without them there are none of the stunning sittings that the entire industry pivots around. And I mean that, because I’ve been drooling over fashion mags since I was a mastheads of major magazines. For whatever reasons, tween. Besides, sometimes the directive comes straight from they’re able to compartmentalize the horror and abuse the top - from a fur-smitten Editor In Chief. Still, there is virtuattached to the fur they want to feature in their pages, ally no doubt – zippo, nada, zilch – that top stylists wield enorshoving it off on in a mental steamer trunk like a lumpy mous clout, and could basically shift the entire world mindset clay bowl from middle school pottery class. around real fur if they chose to do so.

For those of us who can’t compartmentalize like Next up: Supply. Simply put, there need to be more designers this, we can only hope that the collective conscience – big, splashy, amazing, powerful ones - who fully commit to going around real fur will slowly, eventually, inevitably fur-free, not just dabble in it when the mood strikes. If there’s an shift. And I think it will. I routinely see mention of embarrassment of riches on the cruelty-free front, stylists will “vegan” fashion options in even mainstream magazines, have no choice but to lap it up. (Case in point: those adorably crazy and right now, as I write this, Kanye West is being utterly faux fur bear suits from Chanel, which received beaucoup editorial hammered in the Twitterverse for posting a pic of himself outings.) rocking a mink coat.

The last issue – Personal Preferences - is the one that both I have to believe that people mean well. And that with breaks my heart and makes me hopeful for the future. It’s a ba- time and education, the concept of promoting real fur sic – albeit tragic - fact of life that some women (and more than a few will be permanently out of fashion. And not in that men) genuinely love real fur, for both its innate beauty and the status “everything comes back in style,” endless- bellbottomsit confers. And, obvi, some of those fur-lovers wind up on the redux way. I mean forever.

Victory

THIS PAGE Clockwise: Matching shirt, tie and suspenders in recycled PET: Aston Michael Black Label Faux-fur black skit and jacket: VPL

by Victoria Bartlett Bag: Cri De Coeur Faux-seude boots: Olsen Hause Shoulder-pad shirt & recycled foam-tube necklace: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Chain bag: Matt & Nat Ring: Valerie Rubinaccio Shoes: Olsen Haus White faux-fur skirt & jacket: VPL

by Victoria Bartlett Necklace: Laruicci Bag: Cri de Coeur Organic cotton scarf: Eairth Grey studded booties: Melissa Plastic Dreams Top & Bottom: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Faux-fur vegan boots: Olsen Haus OPPOSITE PAGE Top & Bottom: VPL

by Victoria Bartlett Ring: Valerie Rubinaccio Shirt: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Faux-fur skirt and top: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Necklace: VPL by Victoria Bartlett

Norway has made history this year by banning fur from the runways at Oslo Fashion Week.

Design doesn’t have to be draped with dead animals Victoria Bartlett

Necklaces: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Synthetic hair bodice: Shoplifter and Edda for VPL by Victoria Bartlett Bracelets and rings: LaRuicci Top: VPL by Victoria Bartlett

have a

they won’t be bought

or sold and

they

NEVER WEAR FUR

R h T b an N

REAL REBELS have a cause.

They won’t be bought or sold and they never, NEVER WEAR FUR.

REAL REBELS have a cause.

They won’t be bought or sold nd they never, NEVER WEAR FUR.

Vegan coat: Vaute Couture Necklace & ring: LaRuicci Shoulder Pads: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Top by Art String for Ashton Michael Black Label Faux-suede shoes: Olsen Haus Bag: Cri De Coeur Leggings: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Sunglasses: vintage

R E I N V E T T H E I C O N | VOLUME II www.ReinventTheIcon.com

Founder/Editor Joshua Katcher Wardrobe VPL by Victoria Bartlett, Ashton Michael Black Label, Vaute Couture, Olsen haus, Cri De Coeur, Melissa Plastic Dreams, LaRuicci, Eairth, Valerie Rubinaccio, Dirty Librarian Chains Photography Anthony Two Moons Hair Alejandra Nerizagal Makeup Christopher Drummond Stylist Joshua Katcher Art Director Julie Gueraseva Spokesmodels Jessica Sjoo, Gigi Khukta, Irena Khukta, Rachel Kay casting Valerie Oula MAKEUP ASSISTANT Aymee Aguero Special Thanks Cult Studios, Sparrow Media, Maya Gottfried, V-note Restaurant, Oscar Figueroa, Kaight Shop, John Holden, Champs Family Bakery, Melissa Fornabaio, James Koroni, Joelle Katcher, Cynthia King, Esther Bell producer

B EAST Benefits to End Animal Suffer ing Today

ON THE COVER Synthetic hair bodice: Shoplifter and Edda for VPL by Victoria Bartlett Necklace & ring: LaRuicci Recycled computer-chip bodysuit: VPL by Victoria Bartlett THIS PAGE Faux leather glove: Vaute Couture Shoulder armor in recycled hardware: VPL by Victoria Bartlett Hooded shirt in recycled PET: Aston Michael Black Label Earring: LaRuicci Recycled necklace: Dirty librarian Chains