Diary of a model
While scrolling through the world wide web, I came across the following quote and my mouth fell open in amazement.
“One hundred and fifty people are involved. About twenty flights and a dozen train journeys. Forty cars on standby. Sixty international deliveries. Lights turned on and off for at least ten hours non-stop, partly powered by gasoline generators. Food waste from catering. Plastic to wrap the clothing. Electricity to charge phones, cameras, etc.”
This enumeration was made by Emanuele Farneti, the editor-in-chief at Italian Vogue. Everything above (and probably even more) was needed for the eight fashion editorials in the September 2019 issue. I had never thought about the waste that a fashion magazine brings in this way before. So I scrolled away from the Kardashian interviews and read an article about it on the website of, among others, the NRC. Of course, that difficult language is hard to understand for my model brains, but with the help of Google Translate, I managed to understand it.
Already in December 2019, all 26 editors of Condé Nast signed a new statement to promote diversity more and at the same time preserve the planet for future generations. This January 2020 issue of Vogue Italy has taken a good first step in creating awareness about sustainability in the fashion industry. It becomes clear that even without travel, shipping, and waste, beautiful art and fashion images can be created. Besides the fact that no travel was done for the covers, articles in the magazine are about ‘reborn clothing’ made from second-hand garments. Vogue Italy is also working to make the packaging from one hundred percent biodegradable plastic. The money they saved with this issue will be donated to a student society in Venice, which has been severely damaged by the floods. What the initiative of Italian Vogue will mean for my work? I'm afraid not much. Of course, it's a super good initiative, but unfortunately, there are far too many brands and magazines that still don't care about sustainability. Much is often still focused on the cheapest and easiest possible production.
Still, there are small things that catch my attention. For example, almost no plastic (plates, cutlery, cups, etc.) is used on set anymore, and if it is used, there is always someone who says something about it. And that is of course the most important thing, that there is talk about improvement. Today I was on a set where the makeup artist only used sustainable products and brushes. It cost her quite a bit of money and also time to adapt to the small supply, but I thought this was a nice example of what I think the future will look like: more expensive and with fewer items.
We will have to get used to buying three nice shirts instead of ten cheap tops at Zara or that we will have to start swapping clothes instead of buying new ones. So make sure to choose the right friends with good fashion taste, because it is their closets that you will be living out of for the coming years.
XX kisses from Lily
