SA celebs cat walk against fur
SANDTON - South African celebrities join the fight against animal cruelty in the country's first anti-fur fashion show.
Fur Free SA hosted the first anti-fur fashion show featuring 10 of South Africa’s celebrities and designers.
The fashion show was part of a fur free campaign against the cruel fur trade by showing specific designed outfits that contained no animal products.
According to Fur Free SA, millions of cats, dogs and other fur animals such as fox, raccoon, mink and rabbit are raised for their fur and spend their entire lives in small, barren, filthy cages with no sanitation.
They are subjected to violent handling and inhumane transport before being clubbed, strangled or electrocuted to death. Real fur is used as trims on garments, toys, hair trinkets or as all fur hats, jackets and coats. Animal fur is often mislabeled as faux fur, or under exotic sounding names such as Chat de Chine.
Real fur is often dyed with unnatural colours and sheared, giving it the appearance of faux fur.
Celebrities, who paired up with well-known fashion designers, strutted their legs down the living room and patio at the Jenna Clifford studio. Model Christina Storm was paired up with fashion designer Casper Bosman.
Storm said, “I will never use fur because of the horrific ways in which fur animals live and die.” Singer Louise Carver wore a Vesselina Pentcheva design for the anti-fur fashion show. “I try to stand for non-cruelty in all things. That is why I would never wear fur,” she said.
Jenna Clifford took on a Gert Johan Coetzee dress that dazzled the audience. She is a huge believer in this campaign and believes many people do not realise that the fur trim used in garments often consists of real fur.
This reporter sat down with 5fm DJ Catherine Grenfell and Lunar designer Dominique Gatland.
Lunar carries a philosophy of using natural fabrics, simple silhouettes and clean lines. She designed a dress made out of hemp for Grenfell. “I wanted a natural and sculptural dress for Grenfell that would show off her personality rather than overcrowd her,” said Gatland.
“The dip died shading is the only design element. It is a very classic piece,” she added.
Grenfell looks and feels beautiful in the dress. She said when Gatland showed her some of the fabrics and the hem, she thought “this is it”.
“It is so beautiful and feels so lovely, warm, soft and stretchy when on. I have never felt or worn hemp before, so it’s a new experience,” stated Grenfell. When asked where she sourced the fabric, Gatland said it was “locally grown”.
She commented that hemp is rare in this country. “We face a lot of challenges because there are government licenses you have to get and it is difficult to get around the stigma that it is associated with marijuana,” stated Gatland.
As a fashion designer, Gatland said the project really resonates with her. It is important to think about what we put on our bodies, whose hands the clothes have been through, what process it has is gone through and what it is doing to the environment,” she said.
Details: www.furfree.net
Did you know that fake fur may have real fur in its garment too? Tweet @furfreeSA to ask how to check your faux fur on collars, hats and gloves.
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Too wonderful. It is finally happening. The fight against fur must continue!
Without prejudice
Another needless demonstration in South Africa
17.08.2014
Rosebank
The Fur Free South Africa stage yet another Anti Fur “protest”.
In anticipation and awaiting the protest are a large number of SAPS and local security personnel who stand on alert, remembering that at one of the last protests ended up in an injury in the Firs shopping centre of Rosebank back in 2011.
Regardless whether one is for or against the trade in fur, it is high time that the extremist centimentalistsic protest marches are banned from our democracy, because it really is a “MOCKCRACY” of our society.
Pretending to be “ANTI ANYTHING” is a business like any other hiding behind the section 21 non profit bye laws in South Africa and similarly run behind the same “smoke screens” elsewhere in the world.
EVERY ANTI FUR WEB SITE HAS A DONATIONS TAB
How this “business” modal made up:
1) Find an introduction topic that will shock the hearts and minds of the public for example ANTI FUR TRADE, ANTI MEAT OR LEATHER AND THERE ARE MANY MORE.
2) Get a web designer to make you an attractive but extremely shocking web site and fill it with any footage that will make the minds and stomachs of potential supporters turn and oh…don’t forget….. it MUST be all one sided.
3) The message behind the introduction (that you are a non-profit organisation SEEKING ANY DONATIONS POSSIBLE and that you are doing good) or sell something which forms part of A symbol of belonging (A PEWTER SUGAR SPOON FOR R199)…..must be driven home to the potential supporter
4) THE ALL IMPORATNT PLEDGE TAB (never to wear fur again) FOLLOWED BY THE MAIN REASON for all of this is the DONATION TAB.
5) Draw in as many public figures as possible as they too maybe seeking a boost to their “PUBLICITY FETISH”
6) Stage demonstrations and write blogs so that supporters can see activity and get the feel that the “organisation is active”
7) Try be anti as many INDUSTRIES as possible…pet shops, steak houses, leather stores, circuses, fur shops, fish and sushi bars, hand bag and accessory stores and also don’t forget the zoo (those massive animals enclosed in those little enclosures …seeeess very cruel)……,by doing so you will be able to show activity through many months of planned urban terrorism and destruction to private property and the lively hoods of all the men ,women and children who survive from these industries…..
8) Never accept or respect the other side’s opinion as only “MINE COUNTS” attitude and also never investigate and sit around a table and speak it out like intelligent beings.
9) THE AIM IS TO BE SEEN AND HEARD AND NEVER VALUE ANOTHERS OPINION.
So was the demonstration held at Erich Fischer Furriers on Saturday the 17.8.2014?
That parents of the Fur free organisation with a little group of all of 15 people were jeered by on lookers to “Piss off and do something constructive” came from one mans shout.
The little band of demonstrators being led by what appeared to be a 12 year old boy who I can only feel, was used to front the walk for easier access from and to the various shopping malls of Rosebank.
What if this erupted into violence somehow, why must the grownups who carry vendettas, draw their kids into the front line for sympathy posing?
Children should be on the sports fields and recreation facilities on the weekends not demonstrating.
I am Robert Fischer, International trained Furrier and owner of the Esteemed Fischer Fur legacy based in Rosebank, Johannesburg which started 1910 in Germany.
Collectively through 3 generations of Fine Fischer Furs, we have 104 years of existence in what is the oldest trade known to mankind.
Love us or hate us, we will never bow down to any type of pressure these useless organisations try impose.
A month or 2 back Jenna Clifford staged the first “Fur Free” fashion shows at her studios.
The Headline read “Fur-Free SA hosts groundbreaking fashion show”
My answer to that is,….I hope everyone who partook in the event feel they accomplished something worthwhile but consciously knowing that whilst enjoying the show at the Jenna Clifford studio, it might just be possible that the iron ores and expensive stones used for her creations destroys our planet through mining and ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE at all. Regardless of what certificate might be issued to buyers.
Let’s not forget the acid water (poison from Gold mining) which is flushing through our water ways right under us in the heart of Johannesburg and… Oh, the “GROUND BREAKING” earthquake which measured 5.5 on the Richter scale, 5th August with Epicentre near Orkney where 1 man was killed and more than 600 homes damaged.
I understand that the area is a major “Gold mine belt”.
Jenna Clifford boasts the most exquisite, expensive bling made of Silver, Gold, Diamonds, Tanzanite, fresh water pearls and the list goes on….
JENNA….my suggestion to you is….clean up your own back yard before observing that of the fur trade because my production source is sustainable, yours in most part is absolutely not. Once the earth has been raped, robbed and cleaned out for the jewellery trade, those minerals can never be replaced and neither can the murder and displacement of millions of human beings, vegetation and animal life lost through the ages involved directly or indirectly in the abstraction and robbery of the earth’s precious metals and stones.
FACT: My trade (The FUR trade) offers one of the “big 7” of mankind’s survival essentials , water,sun,earth,oxygen,darkness,plants and ANIMALS…these were here for us from the start and once any of these are removed, whether through abuse or naturally, so will mankind cease to exist
I am of the opinion that, ALLMOST EVERYTHING which you, Jenna Clifford, so proudly offer in the true name of VANITY, is useless to mankind’s basic existence and it is your trade not mine, which spills more human and animal blood than any other on the planet.
So rather remove the R199 “anti-fur” pewter sugar spoons you sell to lure potential “ANTI FUR” support to sustain your little publicity fetish……it’s a disgrace and again a MOCKERY to mankind and our democracy and especially to your fellow tradesman and everyone involved in the jewellery trade, whom I highly respect from the first extractions to the final result.
I am sincerely not aiming this letter at any other jewellers as I Love jewellery myself, I am merely pointing out that it can be very possible to try and destroy another person’s industry and livelihood through attack “urban terrorism and assault”…yet those who feel firm footed about their attacks on others will never find fault in their own misery.
Let everyone’s opinions be respected and laid to rest, and remember that our own attics are never spotless.
You’re Furrier
Robert Fischer