Luxury fashion brand Saint Laurent to go fur-free in 2022
September 24, 2021
Killing animals for their fur "doesn't correspond to modern luxury," Saint Laurent's parent company said in a statement. It's the latest fashion house to go fur-free following growing backlash from consumers.
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High-end fashion house Saint Laurent will stop using fur in its collections next year, its France-based parent company Kering announced on Friday.
Kering, which also owns the luxury brands Gucci and Bottega Veneta, will drop fur across all its brands, joining a growing list of companies worldwide.
Adapting to a 'changing world'
Animal rights groups have long appealed to fashion brands to drop the use of fur, which they say is unethical and causes unnecessary suffering to animals.
In recent years, several fashion houses — including Versace, Chanel and Michael Kors — have responded to the calls, resorting instead to fake fur and synthetic alternatives.
Yves Saint Laurent's iconic designs
The designer was synonymous with revolutionizing women's wear. Here's a look at Yves Saint Laurent's creations and the women who wore them.
Image: UPI/dpa/picture alliance
The conception of a collection
Yves Saint Laurent at his worktable surrounded by sketches, fabric swatches, sketch pencils and photos that inspired him when conceiving a collection. The late editor-in-chief of Vogue, Diana Vreeland, nicknamed him the Pied Piper of Fashion. "Whatever he does, women of all ages, from all over the world, follow," she once said.
Image: DR
Freeing the waistline
His first solo collection for Dior in 1958 featured the trapeze dress with narrow shoulders and wide, swinging skirt — a departure from the cinched waists that were the fashion before. Saint Laurent is seen here trying a hat on a model wearing the trapeze dress in his workshop in Paris, France, aided by his assistant, Marguerite Carre.
Image: AP/picture alliance
Works of art
Considered one of the most important pictures in fashion history, this photograph titled "Dovima and the Elephants" was shot by photographer Richard Avedon in 1955. The stunning gown worn by the model was designed by Saint Laurent for Dior.
Image: Musée des Arts Décoratifs/Fabien Jannic-Cherbonnel
Turning haute couture on its head
A model shows off a version of Saint Laurent's famous Le Smoking, the creation that would seal his reputation as a revolutionary designer. This one was part of his 1967 Spring-Summer haute couture collection.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/STAFF
Chaneling the 60s sexual revolution
"Nothing is more beautiful than a naked body," Saint Laurent once said. Instrumental in creating the nude look, he made the female chest visible with the innovative use of see-through material called cigaline. One standout example was a fully transparent chiffon dress with a belt made of ostrich feathers that he created in 1968. In this picture, the dress features shimmering zigzag patterns.
Image: AFP via Getty Images
Marrying art and high fashion
In 1965, Saint Laurent designed six cocktail dresses inspired by the paintings of Piet Mondrian. "Mondrian is purity and one can go no further in purity in painting. This is a purity that joins with that of the Bauhaus. The masterpiece of the 20th century is a Mondrian," the designer once raved.
Image: picture alliance/AP Photo
Stylish in safari jackets
In this photo from 1969, Saint Laurent is flanked by two of his muses, Betty Catroux, left, and Loulou de la Falaise, outside his Rive Gauche boutique in London. All of them sport his safari style designs made of khaki cotton, which quickly became comfortable additions to women's summer wardrobes. The safari look remains a style staple to this day.
Image: picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS
And the bride wore YSL
Bianca Jagger's bespoke YSL suit for her May 1971 nuptials to Mick Jagger in St. Tropez epitomized the seductive appeal of Saint Laurent's Le Smoking jacket. She wore it without a shirt underneath — and a large, veiled sun hat. A new benchmark in bridal wear was set.
Image: UPI/dpa/picture alliance
An enduring friendship
French actress Catherine Deneuve was 22 years old when she first met Saint Laurent. Married to the British photographer David Bailey, she was scheduled to meet Queen Elizabeth and had asked Saint Laurent to dress her. That was the start of an enduring friendship that saw him dressing her for future events and films.
Image: Getty Images/Daily Express/R. Lancaster
Hand stitched post-Impressionism
This 1988 van Gogh jacket made out of yellow organza is lined with satin and yellow silk, and is entirely embroidered with glass beads, sequins, ribbons and pearls. It is thought to have taken haute couture embroiderers at Maison Lesage, one of the greatest embroidery houses in the world, more than 600 hours to stitch by hand. It was sold via auction for €382,000 in 2019.
Image: Thibault Camus/AP Photo/picture alliance
Enthralled by different cultures
"I have been to every country in my dreams," Saint Laurent once said. "All I have to do to blend into a place or a landscape is to read a book, or look at a picture, and then use my imagination." In fact, the designer sometimes created collections without having visited the countries on which they are based.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Glaubitz
Diversity on the catwalk
Long before the clarion call for diversity in the 21st century, Saint Laurent had already sent models of color down his catwalk, including Iman and Katoucha Niane. Supermodel Naomi Campbell, credits Saint Laurent for having had a hand in making her the first Black model to grace the cover of French Vogue.
Image: picture-alliance/ dpa
Saved for posterity
A permanent display of the French designer's haute couture creations can be viewed at two different museums — in Paris and Marrakesh — dedicated entirely to his works. This picture features mannequins in Saint Laurent's eye catching designs at the Marrakesh museum, which opened in 2017 after about four years of construction.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Glaubitz
Take a bow
French model Laetitia Casta (left) and Saint Laurent's friend and muse, French actress Catherine Deneuve, flank the designer at his final haute couture show in Paris in 2002. "I always wanted to put myself at the service of women. I wanted to accompany them in the great movement for liberation that occurred last century," he said back then.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J.-P. Müller
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In its latest statement, Kering said its Italian menswear brand Brioni will also forsake fur.
"The world has changed, along with our clients, and luxury naturally needs to adapt to that," said Kering CEO Francois-Henri Pinault.
"We believe that killing animals not to eat them but only for their fur doesn't correspond to modern luxury which must be ethical, in sync with its times and the questions of our societies," Marie-Claire Daveu, head of sustainable development at Kering, told news agency AFP.
Saint Laurent under fire earlier this year
Saint Laurent faced backlash earlier in March after supermodel Kate Moss appeared in an advertising campaign for the brand wearing a fox fur coat.
US-based animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) took the lead in demonstrations outside a Saint Laurent store in the fashionable Avenue Montaigne in Paris.
"There is nothing glamorous about fur," PETA told Saint Laurent at the time.
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According to PETA, 85% of fur sold globally is sourced from animals that live their entire lives in captivity, often in conditions "of misery" and "extreme suffering." They are regularly killed by poisonous gas, electrocution or beaten to death with clubs, the group said.
On Friday, fur items still featured on Saint Laurent's website, including a rabbit coat priced at €5,500 ($6,450) and a sleeveless fox vest for the same price.
Within the Kering group, Gucci was the first to drop fur in 2017, followed by Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta and Alexander McQueen.
The global fur trade is estimated to be worth billions of dollars annually, employing around 1 million people worldwide.