Fashion Week: home to trends, luxury and excess. Populated by fur-clad fashion editors and bloggers in lizard-skin shoes, Fashion Week used to be the place vegans went to protest with angry signs, not to, you know, enjoy the fashion. But all that is set to change: creative director and animal advocate Emmanuelle Rienda is disrupting the entire concept of Fashion Week by bringing a vegan event to the style crowd. Vegan Fashion Week is happening in February in the most obvious place for it – Los Angeles, one of the most vegan-friendly cities in the world, the city that has banned the sale of fur and that is part of the state of California, where testing cosmetics on animals is now forbidden. The theme of the event is “Facing Our Time”, exploring the challenges around climate change through the lenses of science, nature, and art.
After receiving acclaim for her involvement with several events during Los Angeles Fashion Week, Emmanuelle Rienda released the first edition of the Future of Fashion ethical fashion conferences through her Los Angeles-based creative agency LE FRENCHLAB, supported by PETA and Fashion Revolution. This ignited the passion to create further change to the industry, and so Vegan Fashion Week was born.
Described as “a historic event dedicated to elevating ethical fashion globally”, Vegan Fashion Week is a four-day celebration of ethics and the progress of the animal rights movement in fashion. The ethical extravaganza will kick off with an opening event on the 1st of February at the Museum of Natural History. Guests will be able to enjoy a talk by climate scientist and Nobel Prize laureate Robert Lempert as well as a vegan fashion show, a vegan capsule of high-end designer pieces, and a timeline displaying the evolution of vegan fashion and the brands committed to embracing cruelty-free practices.
The 2nd of February is perhaps the most exciting day of the event – that is when the actual fashion show is taking place in the Fashion Theatre of the California Market Center. Information revealing the names of the designers taking place will be share with ticket holders exclusively shortly before the event – but one thing is certain: guests won’t be disappointed.
The Vegan Lounge will feature brands such as Mink, Svala, Pact and Jeane & Jax.
Day three of the event will delve into the topics at hand more deeply.
“I want to ignite conversations and debates within the industry by educating, elevating and drawing connections between our most important values; our respect for human life, animal rights, and the environment,”
says Vegan Fashion Week creator Emmanuelle Rienda. This is exactly what will happen on the third day, when panel talks and discussions will take place. Representatives from eco-friendly businesses and organisations will mingle with like-minded individuals through exhibitions and experiences. The highlight of this day will be a conference featuring panel discussions on some of the most critical issues in the fashion industry and possible solutions. Themes that will be explored include: animal rights, social justice, circularity, technology and intersectionality.
The fourth and final day of the event will be a private fundraiser which will bring together bringing together like-minded celebrities and influencers, ethical fashion enthusiasts and environmentalists to support vegan designers and celebrate cruelty-free fashion and offer the tools to help emerging and established designers to create cruelty-free alternatives. Rienda’s long-term goals include opening an animal sanctuary to protect the animals who are directly impacted by the fashion industry (an amazing goal, if you ask us!) and to continuously educate mainstream audiences and fashion brands with a travelling fashion event and conference across the globe, until vegan fashion becomes…just fashion. We could not be more supportive.
Find out more about Vegan Fashion Week here and check back with Vilda after the event for an update!
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All photos courtesy of Vegan Fashion Week.
Photographer: Mathilde Bresson @mathildebresson
Stylist: Emmanuelle Rienda @veganfashionstylist
Makeup: Charlotte Prevel @charlotte_prevel; Nelly @nells26
Models: Chelsea Thomas @chelseaalicethomas, Irene Nuez @irenenuezz
Model agency: Elite LA @elitela
