SLAY reveals the dark side to 'natural' materials
Tannery workers working in unsafe conditions, Kolkata, India © SLAY
From the makers of award-winning films Cowspiracy and What The Health, SLAY takes a unique perspective on the animal skin trade in the fashion industry and what has to change.
In one harrowing moment in seminal new documentary SLAY, a raccoon desperately battles for his life, pinned under the water, one of his paws clamped firmly in a leghold trap. Above the water’s surface, the trapper put all his power into slamming a wooden stick into his face. “It was six minutes of fighting - and the raccoon fought back,” recalls undercover investigator Rich Hardy, who was filming that day. The scene is just one of those in which SLAY, masterfully constructed by documentary filmmaker Rebecca Cappelli, sets the reality of the animal skins industry against the way fashion presents itself as high octane glamour and creativity.
Alongside upbeat catwalk scenes featuring celebrities and models sheathed in skins and pelts, footage inside fur farms and leather factories and that of the raccoon offer a sense of the screaming cognitive dissonances that underlie one of the most powerful industries on the planet. Directed and produced by Cappelli and produced by Keegan Kuhn, award-winning co-director and producer of Cowspiracy, What the Health, and MILKED, this is exactly what SLAY hopes to expose. It was no accident that the documentary launched exclusively on free-streaming platform Waterbear during September, a month in which many fashionistas are traditionally prepping for the world’s most prestigious Fashion Weeks.
Many will argue that that exposure has already begun. For years now, fur has been largely vilified by mainstream consumers. High profile luxury fashion houses including Gucci, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Hugo Boss, Prada and Stella McCartney have ditched fur as have industry-facing initiatives such as Copenhagen Fashion Week and department stores such as Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom and now Neiman Marcus. Even outerwear brand Canada Goose, notorious for its use of wild pelts including those of coyotes caught and killed in steel traps, has announced plans to go fur-free by the close of this year. But despite this, the use of animals in fashion - and in the very labels that have forgone fur - continues unchecked, with materials such as leather and wool still largely accepted as ‘innocent’ and, therefore, invisible.
While they may be the latter, they are definitely not the former. According to brand rating platform Good On You, animal products remain pervasive in fashion. Analysing thousands of brands, Good On You discovered that 68% today still use some animal products in their collections. Of the largest, most profitable brands, almost all - 91% - used animal products. No wonder then that, despite action on fur, 2.5 billion animals are skinned for fashion each year, suffering lives destined for death, denied the most basic rights of life and body, their plight unspoken of by industry and media alike. The raccoon is only one of countless such sentient beings slaughtered for fashion but one of only few whose struggle and death was recorded and shared.
A pile of lambskins tagged “baby”, ready for processing at a tannery supplying a famous shoe brand, Victoria, Australia ©️ SLAY
In SLAY, what the animals endure is key in revealing the truth about the industry. Kneeling in front of a caged fox, Cappelli is visibly moved by his small, curious face; his evident misery. “He’s making the same noise as my dog, when he feels upset or someone is at the door,” she murmurs. Her reaction is echoed by Pei Su, founder and CEO of Act Asia, whose Caring for Life Education programme works to raise compassion for people, kindness towards animals and respect for the planet in schools in China. “Witnessing the killing and skinning of animals during the whole process, it’s impossible to describe the pain I feel,” she says, slowly. '“Often, many days later, sometimes even years later, these images keep coming back.” It’s the same with Hardy: “Just thinking back to what I saw on the trapline is enough to send a shudder up my spine. The raccoon lives with me every day.”
But it’s not just the animals who pay the price. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls ‘code red for humanity’, warning of the far reaching impacts of global warming and ecological destruction, fashion has come under increased scrutiny as a key driver of emissions, pollution and natural resource use - as well as the poster child for the culture of excessive growth and consumption behind it all. Yet, despite a recorded critical need to reduce planetary damage and restore wild lands and biodiversity, fashion continues to sidestep the impact of animal-derived materials. That impact is heavy. Highlighting the deforestation and species extinction caused by grazing the cattle for meat and leather, the contamination from fur farms, and slave labour in the tanning factories, Cappelli summarily debunks claims that animal skins can be considered ‘ethical’ or ‘sustainable’.
“The suffering of animals in the fashion industry is greenwashed into oblivion while those skin industries are destroying the planet and harming people,” she says. “The film aims to challenge the notion that animal skins are a fabric, and open people's eyes to the dark realities behind some of the most sought after skins in fashion.” Inevitably, industry kickback against attempts to raise awareness has been vicious - with good commercial reasons. Leather goods, for example, make up a chunky percentage of some fashion brands’ inventories and profits. And that percentage looks set to rise: according to the Business of Fashion, the market for designer bags and small leather goods is set to grow to $100 billion by 2027 from $72 billion today. More slaughter. And, as long as shoppers are kept in the dark about where, how and from whom their natty handbags and new shoes are coming from, things won’t change.
And fashion brands are working to make sure the dark is just where shoppers stay - by refusing to tighten poorly regulated attempts at ‘animal welfare’ in the animal skins industry and by presenting attempts to uncover common but unethical practices as criminal. “This is what these industries are scared of. If the fur industry had glass walls, what would happen? If we were able to see what it takes to make these products, and we had that information when we were at the mall, that’s what they’re terrified of,” comments journalist Will Potter in the documentary. “The FBI is labelling non violent environmental rights and animal activists as the number one domestic terrorism threat - and choosing to ignore people who have murdered human beings, who have stockpiled weapons of mass destruction.”
“To explain how this happened, we have to talk about money,” he continues. “The real power of these industries when it comes to protecting their interests is influencing lawmakers and people in power. [I learned very quickly] how to research contributions from individuals and companies to politicians. These protest groups have nothing.” In addition to these efforts is the risible work by the industry to rebrand skins as ‘natural’ options when compared to synthetic-based ‘vegan’ options, neatly shifting focus from the up to 66 percent of mainstream clothing that is also plastic.
There are no lack of kinder options to real fur as well as its synthetic alternatives: from puffer jackets made from 100% recycled bottles, animal-free leather developed from pineapple leaf, mushroom or apple, and plant-based wool grown from flowers. But the issue at stake is far more fundamental: is it right to use animals in fashion? Can any industry really be considered ‘ethical’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘just’ if millions of sentient beings are being crushed in its mechanisms. No, says founding director of Collective Fashion Justice Emma Håkansson: “It’s time for the fashion industry’s idea of ’sustainability’ to consider the reality that we can no longer sustain injustice for profit — whether it be against humans or the animals we share this planet with. We need a total ethics fashion system.”
Remembering the raccoon, Hardy would probably agree. “ [Fashion] is an industry that doesn’t want society to understand what they do. They don’t want their secrets shared with the wider public because if they are, then people would rally against this industry,” he says. “[The raccoon] had seemed big in the river, his fur puffed up in self defence, but lying on the snowy river bank, fur wet and hugging the skin, he was just a small, defencelss creature - no match for a big, cruel man. I turned away to wipe a tear from my cheek, unseen. I pressed the stop button on the covert camera concealed in my shirt so I could give the recording - this evidence - to those who could help bring an end to the fur industry.”
For more information, visit WaterBear.com to watch SLAY and find out how you can take action.
