no right to use animals and that animals should be considered living species just like humans (Plannthin 2016, pp. 49–122). In this pressured context, a range of strategic responses from luxury companies has been observed. Some brands, such as Lagerfeld, have decided to continue to use animal raw materials, thereby ignoring the criticisms of animal rights advocates. Others, such as LVMH and Hermès, have opted to buy farms in order to secure their supplies and have better control over livestock conditions. Still others, such as Chanel, have preferred to limit the use of animal skins to those of animals destined to end up as human food. Lastly, another group of brands has made the radical choice of ceasing to use animal raw materials and to replace them with substitutes (see Box 2.1). This movement was started by the Calvin Klein brand in 1994 and has since been adopted by a number of other companies; Stella McCartney (2001), Ralph Lauren (2006), Vivienne Westwood and Tommy Hilfiger (2007), and, since 2016, Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, Donna Karan, Maison Margiela, Giorgio Armani, Hugo Boss, Donatella Versace, Burberry and Gucci.
While the decision to include alternative materials has been welcomed by animal rights groups, the same cannot be said of fur producers. The president of the French Fur Trade Federation saw this as a communications campaign.
However, beyond the pro- and anti-fur debate, it is the consumer response that is the biggest challenge for luxury companies. The choice to replace animal raw materials with vegetable or synthetic substitutes comes back to affect an important aspect of luxury, namely quality. A recent study conducted in the French and Saudi contexts (Dekhili et al. 2019) sheds light on this subject. The consideration of the challenge of animal welfare leading to the use of vegetable leather has a neutral effect on the perception of luxury products among French people. However, the Saudis tend to lower their assessment of the quality of luxury products made from vegetable leather. This illustrates the ineffectiveness of the animal welfare argument among luxury consumers and highlights the influence of culture on the perception of the quality of sustainable luxury products. Beyond the low environmental and social awareness of Saudi consumers, the social pressure in a cultural context based on appearance can explain the reluctance observed towards the sustainable offer. Some brands try to overcome this risk by presenting the alternative materials used as innovative and luxurious. This is the case of Stella McCartney, for example, which, on its website, associates vegetable leather with innovation and animal leather with an old-fashioned material: “Scientific research is discovering new mixed fibers that are therefore becoming rare products, which is why innovative materials must be perceived as a real luxury, more so than leather, which has become a relatively common product today”.
Box 2.1. A luxury leather made from pineapple: interview with Amandine Dorin, Founder of Just Ananas
Today, the issue of animal welfare is at the heart of the debate within the luxury industry. For example, under pressure from various stakeholders, including NGOs, a number of companies have made the choice to abandon animal fur and to replace it with alternative raw materials. Some have opted for synthetic fur, a petrol by-product, despite the fact that they are criticized for the pollution this causes. Others, mainly small innovative start-ups, have developed natural raw materials. For example, Amadou Mushroom Leather, awarded the Kering Innovation prize in 2016, developed a leather made from Amadou mushrooms. Orange Fiber, meanwhile, has specialized in the creation of textiles from citrus fruit fibers. Lastly, the start-up Just Ananas makes luxury goods using Piñatex, a fabric created using fibers from pineapple leaves. Let’s consider the last example to better understand the challenges of reconciling luxury and sustainable development by taking animal welfare into account.
Some luxury brands have been criticized for practices encouraging the exploitation of workers and children. What is your opinion on this issue?
“It’s obviously a scandal... I am more involved with it in my work, which is plant-based natural leather. There was absolutely no regulation of anything related to leather tanning produced in Europe. Chemical products, emissions, and so on, even the harmfulness of “Crome”, wasn’t regulated, one of the most harmful and chemical products in the tanning industry, a chemical used in tanning to dye leather. Confronted with this, Europe outsourced production and suddenly it was countries like India and Bangladesh that had to carry out these production stages with workers who had no protection whatsoever, exposed to chemical and carcinogenic substances without knowing the risk. In some countries, such as India and Bangladesh, children, sometimes even those younger than ten, work there... when you buy a product, you don’t know what’s gone into making it.
“This is why it’s important to talk about this and it’s important that brands get engaged and carry out awareness-raising campaigns online so that people know what they’re buying and so that they avoid buying products that have no manufacturing information. It’s proof; when there’s a lack of information on products, there has to be something going on behind the scenes.”
The use of rare, animal-based raw materials contributes to the luxurious nature of luxury products. This practice is now being challenged on grounds of animal welfare. What do you think about this?
“We can have rarity without having to use animal materials. We can have rarity in cosmetics, such as floral scents that are very rare and therefore more expensive. It’s the same thing in fashion and leather goods; with plants, there are products that are still little used, including the pineapple, I’m talking about that because I’m familiar with it, for now it’s a niche that makes it rare and therefore prices are not low.
“It’s always the same problem of communication, of the presentation of the product. If Louis Vuitton presented a range of plant-based bags tomorrow, it would have the whole Louis Vuitton brand behind it and that wouldn’t change. So of course, if he launched it without fanfare by putting a bag on a corner, nothing would happen. I think that the advantage luxury brands have is savoir-faire, whatever the materials used.
“The brands are almost obligated to take sustainability and responsibility into account, and consumers, for their part, are more and more informed about this issue, which will lead brands to give them information. There are regular consumers who are turning away from the brands because they’re better informed, there are more and more videos thanks to the development of social networks, there are loads of videos from L214. Once you’ve seen that type of video, it’s difficult to carry on consuming in the same way. There’ll never be perfect world, but if some well-informed individuals change their consumption habits, that’ll be enough.”
2.3. The perceived contradiction between luxury and sustainable development: origins and solutions
2.3.1. The sources of consumer reluctance towards sustainable luxury offers
Including sustainable attributes in a product or service generally provides an added value to the offer and thereby makes it more attractive from the consumer point of view. Luxury presents an exception, in view of the perceived contradiction between its world and that of sustainable development. It is thus possible to identify eight sources of dissonance that help to understand the perceived gap between these two concepts (luxury and sustainable development), and thereby clarify the reasons for consumer reluctance towards sustainable luxury products. These are grouped around the dimensions of the concept, the environmental dimension and the social dimension (Table 2.2). They are illustrated below with verbatim accounts2.
Table 2.2. Sources of dissonance between luxury and sustainable development
(source: (Dekhili and Achabou 2016))
| Sustainable development | Luxury | |
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Dimensions of the concept
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