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London Fashion Week will be a fur-free first

Lauretta Roberts
07 September 2018

For the first time London Fashion Week has revealed that none of the designer's on its schedule for the event which kicks off in the capital in a week's time will be showing fur.

The news comes a day after British luxury giant Burberry revealed that it would be purging fur from all of its collections, although it hasn't shown real fur on the catwalk for a number of seasons.

While London Fashion Week, which is owned and organised by the British Fashion Council, has not banned fur, a survey of all of its designers revealed that none of them intended to use it.

Chief executive of the British Fashion Council, Caroline Rush, told The Guardian it had stopped short of issuing a ban, since the use of fur in the UK is not illegal and it did not want to dictate to designers or consumers, however “as an organisation we believe in the rights of people and animals and encourage designers to make ethical choices”.

The move away from using real fur has gained real momentum in the past year with a number of international houses ditching it from their collections including Burberry, Versace, Tom Ford, Gucci, Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo. Others, such as Stella McCartey and Vivienne Westwood, have long since taken a firm stance against it.

Earlier this week, singer Paloma Faith teamed up with PETA to pen a note to BFC chairman Stephanie Phair urging it to take an anti-fur stance. “The BFC shouldn’t be endorsing a material whose production is deemed so cruel that it is outlawed in the UK. With the vast number of cutting-edge, eco-friendly faux furs available on the market today, I’m sure you’ll agree that there’s no longer any excuse for killing animals for their fur,” she said.

While the use of fur is not outlawed in the UK, fur farming was banned in the UK in 2000. Earlier this year a group of MPs debated whether the UK should issue a ban on all fur imports, which was met with widespread support but the government has yet to take any action on the matter.

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