“World Vegan Day is the day to remember that animals want to live free from suffering, just like us, and do not want to be turned into burgers or shoes,” expresses Sachin Bangera, director of celebrity and public Relations, PETA India. Celebrated across the globe on November 1, World Vegan Day every year sees a variety of fashion brands promoting veganism through their products.
This year, H&M has partnered with PETA entities to launch its Co-Exist Story, a collection of fashion forward womenswear, menswear, and kids wear all made with innovative animal-free materials. “H&M is pushing the vegan fashion revolution forward and is yet another stunning example of how advancements in textiles have made vegan alternatives nearly indistinguishable from animal-derived materials—and far ethically and environmentally superior.”
The Co-Exist collection by H&M is made from FLWRDWN, a cellulosic material created with natural wildflowers and will feature cozy puffer shoes and jackets, padded trousers, and reversible quilted shoulder bags. VEGEA (an innovative vegan material partly made from grape skins, stalks, and seeds discarded during winemaking) is used to create embossed vest and trousers, while ECONYL® fiber (a regenerated nylon created from waste, like fishing nets and fabric scraps and others) appears in cozy oversize knits. The collection also includes vegan makeup and kids’ T-shirts that declare, “Speak Up for Animals!”
Earlier this year, fashion house Karl Lagerfeld joined forces with model, actress, and activist Amber Valletta and co-created a sustainable accessories collection for Spring 2021, which featured bags using vegan cactus leather. Closer to home, plant-based leather or Pleather is seen as a great sustainable alternative. Malai, a Kerala-based vegan brand sources its material from coconuts. As winners of the Circular Design Challenge at Lakme Fashion Week in 2020, the aim of the brand was to create products that didn’t impact and harm the environment.
Similarly, fashion designers such as Gaurav Gupta, Jade by Monica & Karishma, Péro by Aneeth Arora, Shyamal & Bhumika, Rina Dhaka, Vikram Phadnis, Rocky S, Bloni by Akshat Bansal and many others pledged to be leather-free.
Speaking up against cruelty towards animals and encouraging everyone to be kind to animals, is actor-producer John Abraham. The Satyameva Jayate actor recently appeared in a Mercy For Animals India ad encouraging people to be kind to animals. The ad’s tagline read: “In a world where you can be anything, be nice.”
Expressing his love for animals, John says, “Animals deserve our love, respect, and freedom. Through this campaign, I am giving out a message that the least one can do to help animals is to be nice to them. I am excited to be a part of Mercy For Animals India’s campaign and assure you that I have and always will stand up for animals in need.”
Other celebrities who have raised their voices against animal cruelty are Sunny Leone, Milind Soman, Adah Sharma, Harshvardhan Rane, Jacqueline Fernandes and many more. While Milind Soman and his wife, Ankita Konwar, showcased eight stylish outfits – all created without fur, leather, wool, exotic skins, cashmere, mohair, or silk for PETA India’s fashion lookbook, Sunny Leone was the face of label I Am Animal, an athleisure brand which does not use leather, silk or wool. The dyes used in the clothes do not not contain glycerine or animal fats.
Billions of animals are killed every year to satisfy the demand for fast fashion. According to Bangera, the data show that wool, silk, alpaca fleece, and cow leather have global warming impacts that are over three times larger than vegan textiles such as polyester fabrics or polyurethane leather.
In the end, it all comes down to us and how we can make a difference in the lives of the voiceless!
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