Here're a few things that I found out:
1) Christian Dior had a collection that was made up of python, ostrich and fox skins.
2) Calvin Klein's collection featured jackets that had alligator skins.
3) Celine came up with a white python skirt.
4) Jimmy Choo made snakeskin sandals .
5) Ferragamo used alligator for their footwear.
6) Alexander McQueen used snakeskin in his skirtsuits.
7) Christian Dior had a ponyskin clutchbag.
Just a few to name, I stopped looking because it get depressing.
Roberto Cavalli had this to say about the use of animal skins in design:
"Exotic skins are hot right now, there's a real buzz. I love to use reptile skins because it excites me to take a material that is seen as wild and mix it with a look that shouts glamour and sophistication. Exotic skin - alligator, crocodile and snake - also gives the impression of being superluxurious and expensive, a look women are into at the moment. For men it's cars. For women it's bags, shoes and belts now. A rich woman wants her bag to do the talking. It's the most sophisticated way to say you have money. Exotic skin is the ultimate. Everyone knows it is expensive.”
That was disgraceful. Want a visual? Here's Kylie Minogue and Eva Longoria with their(then) new python bags (probably wasting away in their collections now). And check out the price tags.
It's scant consolation that they cost more than cattle leather.
This is getting too far. How would Mr. Cavalli like to be worn by a bear? A friend suggested dumping him into a Roman amphitheatre with four lions and a feather duster to defend himself with. That should shake him up a bit.
But seriously, people have become short-sighted and/or self-centred. They do not question, and more often than not, they do not care how that bag was made, from what, who does it and how it is done. I do not think that Ms Longoria (Mrs. Parker now) thought about any of those when she got that crazy bag. Pythons are remarkable animals in that they survive with remarkably low metabolic rates, and as such, are tolerant of low oxygen levels. They have a rather primitive brain, and such animals sometimes can survive as 2 seperate entities when decapitated. In fact, this can happen even in birds as well. Go look up "Mike the headless chicken". Therefore, it's virtually impossible to kill them by physical means without otherwise destroying the skin. Naturally it follows that people are actually skinning the pythons alive. Of course, they do die eventually, but that's probably because they dehydrate without their skins.
Pythons aren't the only sufferers. Alligators and crocodiles are getting it too. They are "killed" by driving a chisel into their spinal cord. Of course, not being physiologists, they do not know that these animals aren't dead when they are being skinned, they are still very much alive, and they eventually bleed to death during the skinning itself (the egoistic skinners will now tell you they complete the skinning before the animals die).
It has been estimated that between 2000 and 2005, some 3.4 million lizard, 2.9million crocodile and 3.4 million snakeskins were killed and imported to European Union for their skins. These reptiles are in Appendix II under CITES now. Maybe it's time to push for something higher. They cannot afford to wait till they become really critically endangered before we do anything, because for all our ability to design, discover and engineer, humans can sometimes be the most stupid animals on the planet. People must start asking themselves if it is worth:
1)risking a poor native's life to try and catch and kill an animal perfectly capable of killing him,
2)sacrificing the life of the animal just for that weird bag which they can survive very well without.
I cringe everytime women see an animal skin product and go "I must have that!", because they don't have to have it. They won't die without it, and if they realise that, that python would still be somewhere in the rainforest helping farmers to control rat populations.
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