French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier said
Wednesday he could go back to using fur if he could be sure it was entirely
traceable.
The flamboyant creator announced in November he was renouncing fur, a move
hailed as a major victory by animal rights groups like PETA who have
previously tried to disrupt one of his shows and occupied his Paris boutique.
But at his first fur-free Paris haute couture show, Gaultier told AFP that
this “wasn’t a funeral for fur”.
He said that he did not rule out one day recycling his old furs, or using
new pelts again “if everything is done right, and obviously not with
endangered species.
“But for now we need to calm things down,” he added.
Gaultier told French television last year that the methods used to kill
animals for fur were often “absolutely deplorable”.
He produced his entirely fur-free autumn winter collection Wednesday with
US singer Christina Aguilera in the front row alongside French movie legend
Catherine Deneuve and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” stars Violet Chachki and Miss Fame.
Gaultier replaced fur with feathers in typically flamboyant fashion, with
huge fluffy collars and plume-decked chapka hats, quipping, “No feathers have
been killed for this show.”
Pelts gave way to animal prints.
“It’s fake fake fur,” Gaultier told AFP, “a trick of the eye.”
“I really like the feel of fur, it’s absolutely magificent and so warm. But
now we have that in other ways,” he admitted.
“We are in an age when there is too much of everything, so we shouldn’t be
killing animals.
“I have a charming little pussy, and I love animals, though I draw the line
at crocodiles,” said the 67-year-old enfant terrible.
Gaultier said that it had been well established that animals used for fur
were often not well-treated. “So I prefer not to use it any more, or maybe
just recycle my old furs from 15 years ago that weren’t sold so I can do
something with them.
“We have to recycle clothes. It is something I have done from the beginning
of my career with old jeans, cutting them up in every which way. We could do
the same thing with fur. We should not be burning clothes.”
Gaultier conceded that fur had a huge image problem.
“I didn’t like the image of women who wore fur — of women kept by old rich
men. Thankfully women have gone beyond that a long time ago, and fur is no
longer a synonyn for that.”(AFP)
Photos: Jean-Paul Gaultier, AW19 Catwalkpictures