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Python frenzy splits fashion world
Becky Davies, Evening Standard01.10.07
Animal rights campaigners are furious about this season's fashion trend for python skin.
Designer labels including Jimmy Choo, Calvin Klein, Prada, Fendi, Roberto Cavalli and YSL have all used snakeskin for bags and shoes this year.
Since Kylie Minogue was photographed at a Prince concert last week sporting a python Zagliani bag, demand has risen for the bags costing from £500 for a small clutch to £5,000 totes.
The trend was today condemned by campaigners. Poorva Joshipura, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said: "A python has a hose shoved down its throat, is blown up with water then skinned alive. Then it's tossed onto a pile and is left, sometimes for days, before it dies. The trade is pushing many species towards extinction and the endangered species of tomorrow can be seen in the luxury shops of today."
The European Union is the world's biggest importer of reptile skins. Between 2000 and 2005, 3.4 million lizards, 2.9 million crocodiles and 3.4 million snakeskins were brought in. Designers claim to use skins from "farmed" pythons, but experts warn there is a thriving illegal trade, especially in India and Indonesia.
Zagliani designer Mauro Orietti-Carella said: "Zagliani was founded 70 years ago as a company that specialised in exotic skins bags. We are not following a fashion moment. We do not make as much as the market demands because we are concerned about the use of too many skins, and will only work in an ethical and environmentally responsible way."
FOR Becky Davies
Naively I believed that the scales on my make-up bag were skin naturally shed from a python's back, rather than barbarically stripped.
Snakeskin is luxurious and decadent; pretty much all the top designers have accessories made from it and they are much in demand.
Is wearing snakeskin any different from wearing leather or eating meat? Just as with animals farmed for their meat, those farmed for their skins should be treated well and killed humanely.
Exotic Italian bagmaker Zagliani - as well as other fashion houses - works closely with CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). This organisation only use skins that come from the regulated annual cull of dangerous animals - pythons, crocodiles and alligators.
It is important to know where your skin, leather or fur came from. Then you can make up your own mind about whether you feel comfortable wearing it.
AGAINST Mimi Spencer
I've fallen for a fair few trends in my time, but nothing would possess me to wear python. The bloody heart of the matter is that there's nothing remotely cool about it.
Over the past decade, design houses - which increasingly rely for profits on the handbag and shoe market - have seized upon ever more exotic ways of presenting the humble satchel. Reticulated python and anaconda skins are just the latest trend.
Now, you may hope that your new handbag was friendly farmed and humanely harvested. And you may be right. But environmentalists insist that the python population of south-east Asia is under severe threat and that for every animal that goes through the system, another will be smuggled out. It is thought that only 10 per cent of stocks are farmed.
So, next time you find yourself stroking a slingback in Selfridges or hugging a handbag in Harvey Nicks, it might be worth questioning just how glamorous they really are. Personally, I wouldn't touch them with a long pole.
Reader views (8)
I never used to have a problem with python or crocodile accessories. I used to manage a clothing store that did sell these and never once questioned where they come from and what process was undertaken to obtain them. And I am somebody who cares deeply for the welfare of animals. This concerns me mainly for the fact that most consumers have little regard for the journey in which their products take. It doesn't stop here though...what are the conditions in which the labourers are faced with? Do we still have children making our clothes for pennies a day? I'd be truly saddened to learn just how much damage I've directly or indirectly contributed just simply by consuming, unknowingly and uneducated.
- Steve Korchinos, Toronto, Canada
There is no way of killing an animal for its skin 'ethically' because they have to worry about the skin remaining in good condition. End of.
Pro-fur/snakeskin idiots never state exactly how the animals are killed and have their skin stolen. If these lot claim to be interested in 'animal welfare' - then tell everyone how they're killed. But they wouldn't, because it's always shockingly bad.
About farmed snakeskin - as long as this trade exists the illegal trade will thrive, end of.
About the difference between meat - once an animals died it won't care what you use its body for, it's all animals dying completely unnecessarily. But the difference between food and clothes is its easier to not wear skins than to change what you eat.
- Littlejohn, London, England
What would all these celeb's that buy real skin products think if we started an auction to buy THEIR skin?
- Nicole, Australia
Skin only looks good on it´s biological owner, period.
- Maureen Ellen Roth, Rio de Janeiro
It is just disgusting, its turning the clock back, women need to wear dead animals to look glamourous and sexy. Kylie Minogue is obviously obsessed with appearing sexy and walking about with dead animal skins and pouting is just sad, would she wear a tiger or panda bear skin if she thought it would get her picture in the papers..I bet she would, its pathetic.
- Kate, Edinburgh
It is barbaric to cause any creature to suffer for the sake of fashion, let alone drive species to the verge of extinction. It is only when those buying these fashion items are ostracised rather than envied, when their vanity is deplored and not pandered to, that we will be able to call ourselves human beings again.
- Alison Shewell, London
I'm not an animal rights extremist but there is something dehumanising about accessories associated with such vile cruelty being sported as "fashion".
- Ice, Wales
Leather shoes and handbag is where I draw the line. Someone gave me an eel skin handbag as a gift and it makes me feel sick if I even have to move it in my cupboard. Yuk - these should be banned. People should have in their mind that they are carrying a python around with them. Urgh!
- Charlie, London
