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Chanel slammed for cutting down trees for Paris fashion show

Chanel slammed for cutting down trees for Paris fashion show

The France Nature Environment group condemned the show as "heresy"
07 Mar, 2018

Karl Lagerfeld created a spectacular mid-winter wood for his Paris catwalk Tuesday, but immediately fell foul of environmental activists who accused him of felling century-old trees for the show.

The veteran German creator turned the Grand Palais into a forest, with tonnes of dead leaves strewn on mirrored steps and nine tall mossy oaks planted down the middle of its vast nave.

Trees had also been chopped down to make rows of benches for his guests, including Hollywood star Keira Knightley, British pop singer Lily Allen and former French first lady Carla Bruni Sarkozy.

But the France Nature Environment group condemned the show as "heresy", accusing the luxury brand of trying to "give itself a more green image while completely divorced from the reality of protecting nature."

It said that whatever point Chanel was trying to prove with the show "had failed. Nature is not chopping down trees in a forest, putting them up for a few hours for a show and then throwing them into a skip."

Chanel hit back strongly late Tuesday saying none of the oak and poplar trees it sourced from a forest in western France had been a century old.

"In buying the trees Chanel also promised to replant 100 new oak trees in the heart of the same forest," the brand added in a statement.

Chanel raised eyebrows last year for a PVC-themed collection at a time when plastic pollution is hitting the headlines.

Comments

SHAHID SATTAR Mar 07, 2018 10:00am
No such protests can take place in Karachi at least, where some 3/4 years ago the entire Karsaz Road, with the old poshest residential area on one side and the naval officers posh residential flats and other institutions on the other, the entire road was cleared of the some seventy years old trees for installation of publicity hoardings by the dozens. Who is responsible for this slaughter of the trees, no one is willing to tell or take the responsibility for the same. The billboards have not been installed due to the kind intervention of the judiciary, but the damage was done and the walkers on the footpaths are without any shades or relief from the scorching sun ever since that time. The boundary walls of the area on one side at least have been started being used for publicity purposes. Can one request the beneficiaries from this publicity to replant those spots which had the grown up trees earlier. They may not grow to their old lives during our life time, but at least we will be compensating the injustice done by our generation.
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Juzer Fakhruddin Mar 07, 2018 10:35am
Ironic. Paris not following Paris accord :)
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haider Mar 07, 2018 02:04pm
Hypocrisy..
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