It is one of the most anticipated appointments of the year among fashion lovers. The Met Galatraditionally held every first Monday of the month of May, represents the deployment in style of the American fashion industry in an appointment that underlines the importance of the sector as a cultural asset throughout history.
This year, the Costume Institute of New York will present the exhibition “A Line of Beauty”, which explores the designer’s prolific career Karl Lagerfeld, who for more than fifty years promoted the use of fur, feathers and materials of animal origin.
After Lagerfeld’s death in February 2019, Chanel decided to stop using animal skins and, the following year, also included exotic skins. Because the MET Gala will be dedicated to the work of the German designer, the non-profit organization for animal welfare, PETA, asked the organizers of the event to prohibit the use of looks with materials of animal origin, especially feathers, on the red carpet.
Dua Lipa, Penelope Cruz, Michaela Coel and Roger Federer, as well as the usual Anna Wintour, received the letter from the organization to instruct designers and gala guests to stay away from fur, exotic skins and especially feathers.
Recently, the organization for the rights of animals carried out a investigation on feather Industry, including the rearing and slaughter of ostriches, revealing how animals are often plucked while still alive and how their lifespans drop from 40 years to just one. Other smaller birds, such as pheasants, turkeys, peacocks, and ducks, suffer the same fate.
In a statement, the president of the association, Ingrid Newkirk, I declare that “it is time for designers to be more creative and innovative in fashion, and stop depending on birds and other animals who suffer horribly for their designs”. “The organization hopes that the Met Gala will show compassion towards animals by avoiding animal materials and imitations as well,” he concluded.
PETA calls for the creativity of designers so that adapt your costumes to different alternatives that do not involve animal suffering. “That’s what fashion is all about, being innovative,” he added. Newkirk, convinced that the petition will generate a change in the way of dressing. The letter also reached the five co-chairs of the Met, emphasizing the popularity of the event and how it could raise public awareness.
“The high-profile people in the spotlight at this wonderful event exert enormous influence on the viewing public, which is why we We ask that you implement a policy to allow designers to only use vegan feathers, faux fur and simulated fur, for the sake of animals and the environment.” said.
We will have to wait to see if PETA’s petition manages to sensitize both the authorities and the guests at the ceremony, with the aim that in the next edition designs that use products of animal origin will not be presented on the iconic red carpet.
karl lagerfeld he was a regular visitor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, from the Seventh on Sale Benefit gala in 1991 to the opening of the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty show in 2011 and, of course, with the exhibition of Chanel made in 2005.
And yet, according to the curator responsible for the Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton. the “Kaiser of fashion”, “never tired of saying that fashion did not belong in a museum. “When we worked together on the Chanel show, he was incredibly generous with what he lent us, but he was completely uninterested in the show itself. He said: ‘Fashion is not art; fashion should be on the street, on women’s bodies, on men’s,’” she revealed.
From 1954 (when he shared the Woolmark Prize with another emerging designer named Yves Saint Laurent) until his death in 2019, the designer was behind the reins of Balmain, Patou, Chloé, Fendi, Chanel and his own brand of the same name, without stopping for a moment.
For this reason, despite what he himself lagerfeld thought about the role of fashion in museums, now he will be the theme of the Costume Institute exhibition, next spring 2023, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. And it is Bolton, who has been entrusted with the task of shaping the ambitious exhibition on one of the most fertile and inquisitive minds in fashion of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Keep reading:
