By Rebecca Benson
You’d think she’d want to avoid courting controversy, after her abomination of an endorsement, when she partnered with Pepsi in 2017. The now infamous advert, where Kendall Jenner stopped a riot from breaking out by winking at a policeman and offering him a can of soda, quickly turned into a Twitter frenzy, of both condemnation and hilarious memes. However, this Sunday Kendall felt the wrath of Twitter once more, when she walked the runway for Dsquared2 (no I’d never heard of it either), clad in an enormous fur trimmed coat.
While it’s not 100 per cent clear what this particular item is made from, the brand is well known for stocking real fur items. A quick Google search shows a variety of genuine fur products, such as a Mink fur coat – now sold out, which at 50 per cent off you could’ve got one for the bargain price of £7,598! The tweets, came thick and fast, as people expressed their disgust that she would wear real fur.
Now, I am not pro-fur in the slightest. Why does anyone need it when you can now get incredible faux pieces at affordable prices? However, I do have a bone to pick with the majority of people who express their ‘outrage’ at fashion fur. The irony of people who will condemn the use of real fur, while simultaneously chomping down on a cheese burger and bargain bucket is beyond belief. Can someone explain to me why real fur is awful, but your leather shoes, leather jacket, and leather bag are totally fine?
If it’s not obvious, I’m a vegetarian – aspiring vegan but haven’t quite cut out the baked camembert’s just yet. However, I also own a real fur coat. Purchased when I was a meat eater, it’s second hand and, according to the label, is also made from bunny rabbits. People often compliment the coat when I’m wearing it, and ask if its genuine. Upon confirmation of its provenance, they give me a look of horror, with one friend saying it made her ‘feel sick’. Half an hour later she was making herself a bacon sandwich as a ‘hangover cure’.
Statistics for the fur trade are hard to come by, however Icanimal estimates that up to 1 billion rabbits, and 50 million other animals are killed for their fur every year. This is nothing compared to the number of animals murdered for the food industry. Records are hard to come by – after all, why bother keeping records of a conveyor belt of endless slaughter – but Animal Equality estimates that 56 billion animals are murdered for food every year. This does not include fish and other sea creatures, whose deaths are so vast they are only measured in tonnes. Other estimates such as those from The Vegan Calculator (TVC), of 150 billion are likely to be more accurate.
I find it bizarre that this is an accepted facet of our society, yet Kendall Jenner throws on one fur coat for a jolly down the runway, and people are ‘outraged’. Why is this? Is it because people are horrified by the thought of cute little minks (I bet none of them could pick a mink out from an animal farm line up) being murdered unnecessarily in the name of fashun? Unlikely. If we’re honest, it’s probably because people love to condemn from their keyboard, jump on the band wagon, and be ‘horrified’ by animal cruelty, as long as it doesn’t involve any personal effort or sacrifice from themselves whatsoever. The vast majority of people are against real fur – because they can get faux fur at no personal cost. Meat on the other hand, ask someone to give up their minced beef for a Quorn sausage and they look at you like you’ve gone insane. Similarly with climate change, with meat production being the biggest cause of global warming, perhaps instead of charging 5p for a plastic bag, it would be a better idea to suggest people take a courgette home rather than their 100 per cent beef burger?
Now, maybe everyone expressing their outrage on Twitter are 100 per cent vegan – but I very, very much doubt it. So my point is this; check your dinner plate before you express your horror at Kendall’s latest ‘faux pas’. I’ll keep wearing my second hand furs, and the next time someone tells me to recycle my orange juice, while stuffing their face with the left overs of last night’s chicken chow mein, I’ll tell them to f*ck off.
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