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“What’s Eating You 2?” Mothmageddon
CHAPTER 3
The Moths Eating Your Clothes and Furnishings
When Vogue magazine’s former Editor-in-Chief, Alexandra Shulman reached into her wardrobe a few years back, she discovered to her horror that some of her designer clothes had fallen prey to clothes moths.6
One cashmere designer jumper after another was dotted with holes, where the clothes moth larvae had feasted on the expensive fabric. The moths had snacked their way through jumpers from Jean Paul Gaultier, Rick Owens and Clements Ribeiro among others.
Fashion designer Alex Foxton also fell prey to the voracious moth monsters. He blamed a vintage suit for his troubles.
“I buy a lot of second-hand clothes, and I’d bought this Thirties suit from Oxfam in Dalston,” he told The Independent. “It had been hanging in my wardrobe for a while, and when I went to put the trousers on, the crotch area was full of holes. It was disgusting. Big holes, and there were cocoons everywhere on the trousers.
“I’d hung the trousers to keep the crease, and the moths had obviously found a nice dark area in the crotch.
“And then I looked at my other trousers and they were all like that. I had two pairs of Helmut Lang trousers that were completely ruined. I had a really huge tie collection and they’d
6 ‘Lock up your cashmere!’, Rushton, Susie, The Independent, www.independent.co.uk, July 16, 2007
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