Favorite scene in a favorite film: The secretary (played by Melanie Griffith) comes into her boss’s apartment to inspect her wardrobe; she needs an evening gown for a social occasion that takes place beyond her clothing budget. Her best friend (Joan Cusack) is supposed to help her with this.
You will soon come across a chic cocktail dress, it has apparently never been worn, because the price tag dangles from the zipper. The sight of it leaves both of them speechless, the girlfriend recovers a little faster: “It’s not even made of leather!”
Guaranteed laugh: When the film “Working Girl” came out in theaters in the late 1980s, we learned that a designer dress could easily slip into the price range of a used car. Until then, real leather was the epitome of something precious. What you saved for, what you hoped to wear for many years. There is also a suede blouson in my closet, which is now almost twenty years old and is still being honored.
Then the first imitations of leather stumbled across the fashion catwalk: the designer Stella McCartney has been using exclusively fabrics or artificial leather for shoes and handbags for more than twenty years. The rest of the fashion world continued to rely on the tried and tested; only here and there did other designers have artificial skins or imitations of leather.
This autumn everything suddenly seems different: Real leather and even more real furs are no-go. According to the motto: “Do you still wear fur – or are you already cool?”
Gucci, Prada and Chanel have stopped using furs or exotic animal skins and announced this in the media – with a view to a new generation of female customers who have made animal welfare a must.
Because unfortunately products from factory farms have been far too cheap for a long time. Our bratwurst also wins in a direct comparison to eggplant and courgette in every supermarket. The number of veggies has skyrocketed in the recent past, but these trendsetters are still part of an urban elite.
We would be a big step further if the value of a leather jacket – or a schnitzel – went hand in hand with appreciation. But I’m afraid that in a world like ours, where the super-rich could exterminate entire herds of cattle, price alone can no longer regulate anything.
Or – is being rich perhaps no longer cool?
Lisa Feldmann already thought about the deeper meaning of our everyday lifestyle products as editor-in-chief of the magazine «Annabelle». Today you can read about it every second Saturday in Blick and at www.feldmanntrommelt.com