How Billie Eilish Helped Usher in Positive Change for the Fashion Industry
Photo Courtesy Of John Shearer/Getty Images
You’ve likely seen the best and the worst of Met Gala looks for the year and even if you aren’t Met obsessed, images of Billie Eilish in a stair sweeping Oscar de la Renta gown are not to be missed.
The nude colored gown, featuring a 15 foot tulle train and corset bodice, fell gently off the shoulder and was accented with 30 pieces of Cartier jewelry, working together with Jimmy Choo shoes to create a look inspired by a true American fashion icon: Holiday Barbie.
The look however, is not the big story. Originally broken by the New York Times, it was reported that after having ignored nudges from both family and employees, a push to stop the sale of fur from Eilish was exactly what was needed to make the CEO of Oscar de la Renta, Alex Bolen, come around.
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As per the New York Times: “I thought a lot about what Oscar said… that the one thing he worried about in the fashion business was his eye getting old.”
As for Eilish herself, she told NYT that she thought it was “shocking that wearing fur isn’t completely outlawed”, and that she is honored to have been a catalyst and “to have been heard on this matter.”
Interestingly, Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, the designers at Oscar de la Renta, went beyond pointing out the barbarism involved in using fur by declaring it unchic, unmodern and irrelevant. This resulted in the absence of fur from the de la Renta runway that began a few years prior to this recent decision to nix fur completely.
Setting new rules about what extreme luxury and high fashion can be is nothing if not innovative. We look forward to seeing how other fashion houses follow suit and make their own mark in an effort to move toward more humane, ethical, and sustainable fashion design.
