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The Environmental Impact of Fashion weeks
241,000 tons of Co2 is emitted by fashion professionals and clothing collections moving around the world each year for fashion weeks. This is a shocking number and the reason why fashion weeks have been under scrutiny for quite a while now. It started back around 1,5 year ago when extinction rebellion in London declared that London Fashion Week should cancel and they were throwing a funeral to signal that. Stockholm fashion week, always quick to respond to societal trends, cancelled last year because they wanted to do better and would prepare for a new format.
FASHION SHOW EXTRAVAGANCE
While most designers stayed faithful to the traditional runway show with models parading down a long narrow catwalk or in a passerelle or semi-circular format, European counterparts favoured the extravaganza. For example, Nino Cerutti used publicity stunts to self-promote, such as when he painted Lancia convertibles blue, then paraded them down the streets of Rome and onto the runway, where a starlet then broke a bottle of champagne on the hood4.
Designers Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler staged fashion show “extravaganzas” during the 1970s and 1980s that became media hypes, with fashion models often upstaging the clothes. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, designers John Galliano and Alexander McQueen continued to create some of the most spectacular shows, often with celebrity guests in attendance and sometimes even taking to the catwalk.
Viktor & Rolf, Chanel, Rick Owens, Fendi and Ricardo Tisci at Givenchy transformed the fashion show experience for the new millennium by creating avant-garde conceptual performances, adding plus size models and introducing technology, such as the Fendi show in 2015 that used drones to film and live stream the show5.
Newness is seeded everyday, From intricate sets to extravagant locations, fashion shows may have gotten out of hand. A prime example lies in Saint Laurent’s Spring/Summer 2020 show in July 2019. The brand set up shop on a hidden beach in Malibu and violated multiple environmental regulations that “protect
4Historical Dictionary of the Fashion Industry, Francesca Sterlacci, Joanne Arbuckle ISBN9781442239081
5https://www.crash.fr/fashion-show/