Italian Vogue has dedicated its new January issue to animals: they have created several collectable covers and all of them are featuring different beasts — from dogs to bees. This move is quite marvellous at the first sight, but is it actually a genuine care for animals and the situation in the ecology world, or just an attempt to impress their social media audience and buy Instagram followers (and subs on other platforms as well) by making people think of them better than they actually are?
Well, their editor-in-chief seems to be pretty sincere about the situation: Emanuele Farneti thinks that it is time for the fashion industry to reflect on the limits of human beings exploring and using natural resources, including all the resources that animals give. Ideas of veganism and zero-waste life became big and discussed during the last few years, and now even fast fashion should try to orient on these matters and reduce consumption by reducing production. Right now this is just an idea that’s far from becoming a reality, but we hope that one day more fashion influencers and manufacturers will put their efforts into solving ecological problems.
Vogue’s campaign is trying to say: the whole world doesn’t revolve around people. The images of lambs, wolves, panthers, mice and even bees that appeared on the covers are intended to remind us that animals, like all nature, do not exist for our purposes and do not change depending on how we would like to see them.
Last year, Vogue Italia also dedicated its January issue to environmental issues and that time the whole magazine was free from fashion shots at all. It was done to reduce the carbon footprint that any human activity has — yes, it’s that complicated and yes, we all have to think about it while we’re planning to not only buy something new but go somewhere or do something.
Interesting fact: while we were on lockdown the decrease in our carbon footprint allowed the wildlife to at least temporarily free up space for itself. These 12 months of a pandemic is a valid reason for us to realize that the world does not revolve around people and that we are in charge of its well-being and stability. It’s pretty possible that major fashion (and not only fashion) magazines will continue to devote their publications and photos to environmental issues, covering questions that are much more important than fast fashion, consumption and human desires.