Marketing Mission: fur free
11 October 2017 the famous and powerful Italian fashion house Gucci announces that it will never again use real fur for its collections.
Gucci is fur free
The fear that the domino effect will involve other pawns of the fashion world takes over sector operators.
And so it will be: as the pack follows the call of the (commercially) alpha male, many other fashion houses for once will not have to worry about creating a trend but simply support an artfully prepackaged one. A bit like being so lucky as to find someone to promote you for free. A marketing expert would say it is madness to have everyone do the same advertising at the same time. Like when at Christmas we are offered ten different brands of panettone at once.
Brands that have made the history of fur like Marni, Versace join the fur free group together with Furla, Michael Kors, Stella McCartney, Bottega Veneta, Jimmy Choo and Groups like Ynap, La Redoute, VF Corporation (that includes Timberland, Napapijri, The North Face and Vans). Giorgio Armani and Ovs had already made this choice in 2016, preceded in 2015 by Hugo Boss, and even before by the Inditex Group.
But what is the reason for this Fur Free choice? Is it really guided by the heart and a real, deep feeling or maybe by the usual “suspect” logic.
Let’s take a few steps back:
The Kering group (owned by Gucci) in 2015 took over total ownership of Caravel S.p.A of Castelfranco di Sotto, global leader in the production of crocodile, alligator, pythone and reptiles.
Python, crocodile, hides are allowed by fur no. What a strange decision!
Since 2014 Gucci has been under the Financial Police’s eye for tax evasion.
2017: Kering Group is investigated for evading 2.5 billion euros (not a modest figure) starting in 2002 through a holding system between Switzerland, Holland and Luxemburg, to save on millions of euros of tax on Gucci brands and other multinational French Kering makes, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney. (check out how many fur free brands are owned by Kering).
If everyone follows me to hit me because I am dressed in red, I try putting on a white dress like a good little girl maybe I can find someone to accompany me in my flight or maybe I can even blend in.
How many fur skins does Jimmy Choo use for its shoes: irrelevant for the turnover.
OVS? Maybe zero, let’s not exagerate but it must have used a dozen?
The sale of furs counts for 10 million euros of Gucci’s turnover, a bit as if a normal person tomorrow earnt 1 euro more a year, give or take a cent.
How much do the brands that suddenly declare themselves “anti fur” increase their brand awareness wearing a little white dress? Incalculable but suspect: very.
Moving the attention from a very big problem to a sensitive subject that makes everything human as in the case of Kering Group(Gucci); trying to increase sales siding with the “good guys with a clean conscience and delicate hands”, as all the other brands did, is a technique that has been adopted since the Roman emperors, or maybe even before by chameleons to camouflage themselves.
Which brand of the Kering group is the most powerful at the moment in terms of communication, satisfaction, commercial power? Which brand of the Kering group is able more than anyone else to pull people along influencing tastes and opinions: Gucci.
What is the competitor of reference in terms of communication for all the others: Gucci.
Les jeux sont faits: Kering sends ahead his strongest horse; the others align with the strongest one.
In a system that is so entirely saturated that it has to maintain the machine cost created by the same fashion brands to not be crushed by themselves you can even go so far as to deny your own origins and own children. And so did many of those that praised fur as the foundation of their story and built their story on fur. The mother that they now deny.
I could write that fur is an ethically clean, 100% biodegradable material, how certified farms respect animals and how “ecological” fur is devastating and polluting for the environment: but I won’t. I have done it many times but I won’t do it again because I only wanted to give you certain facts that many of you will read and take on. You will make your own conclusions. I won’t behave in the same way, I don’t want to take attention away from you.
Who knows maybe some of you will change your minds, historically many have done it and it is said that it is also the sign of an intelligent person to do so, even if frankly I shouldn’t say it I have always found very funny the famous poster “Pinocchio” that Peta dedicated to King Giorgio when he had promised to do not use fur any more and then used them just a few weeks after the announcement. If you has never seen it click here.
Luckily most people still reason with their own heads and despite the continuous brain washing that we are subjected to daily, not all of us allow ourselves to “have the full shower”.
Ah sorry out of honesty I will report who doesn’t need excuses to sustain his own brand: Tom Ford declares he became vegan but not fur free in his collections. As well as being good and current emblem of Gucci he is also nice 🙂
