37 min
Is Ethical Fashion on Your Radar? Why It Should Be! with New York’s acclaimed Fashion Designer, Joshua Katcher NYK Experts Uncut
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- Animales y mascotas
Did you know that entire species have gone extinct due to the fashion industry, and that the leather shoe industry is one of the main drivers of climate change? Have you heard that it is leather, not meat, that is by far the most profitable element of factory farming animals such as cows and pigs? Did you know that the wool is actually being pulled over your eyes when it comes to the sustainability and ethics of the wool industry itself?
Listen as Joshua Katcher, New York fashion designer, entrepreneur, author and educator, speaks openly about the truth behind how animals are bred, farmed, trapped and slaughtered for their skin, fur and hair, and elucidates for us why making ethical fashion choices matters.
Katcher, named one of the Top 20 Most Influential Vegans of 2019 by Veg News Magazine, is founder of both The Discerning Brute the world’s first men’s vegan lifestyle website and Brave GentleMan, the first vegan lifestyle menswear brand in the world. He has not only taught at both Parsons and LIM college in New York, but is also a leading lecturer on vegan fashion around the world. Katcher has lobbied in the United States for sustainable and ethical fashion and is on the Advisory Board for The New Fashion Initiative. In 2019, he published Fashion Animals, the first book dedicated to understanding how and why animals are exploited by the fashion industry.
In this fascinating and eye-opening interview, Katcher shares his story of how and why he started The Discerning Brute and Brave GentleMan, and why it is crucial that each of us becomes aware of the chain of events behind our purchases, and starts to take our purchasing power seriously.
Katcher and Kathryn discuss how veganism, the renunciation of animal products from our lives, is a position and action that is about much more than just food choices: it is an ethical statement about how we want to live in the world in order to take care of, and protect, animals, the planet, and our own bodies. While cutting-edge science now recognizes the complex, sentient and emotional lives of non-human animals, they continue to be exploited, used and abused on a mind-boggling scale not only for food, but for household items, fashion items, car-interiors, the list goes on. This treatment of living beings as nothing more than commodities to be used by us, is not only antiquated but egregious in nature.
Katcher educates us on how the fashion industry and the design industry have a tremendous global impact on billions of animals annually, and millions of workers as well as on our ecosystem. He makes us think about the systems hidden behind the products we purchase, and emphasizes that it is the systems themselves, not only our personal choices, that we need to be aware of, think about, and change. Kathryn and he discuss just how difficult it is to do the right things when it comes to our consumer choices, and how easy it is to do the wrong things. This is in no small part due to the plethora of cheap products, but it is also due to lack of labeling, labeling schemes, and misleading claims by companies.
“We are so disconnected from the way things are made and supply chains and that is a really, really big problem, and what that results in is something called aesthetic irrationality, where, because a product looks good or tastes good, that goodness, in and of itself becomes the justification . . .” – Joshua Katcher
Katcher points out that when a product is cheap, there is a reason, and it is often a dark one. Listen as he debunks some of the myths we subscribe to regarding fashion, and helps us to understand why we need to challenge social norms surrounding not only food, but also what we put on our bodies. Contrary to popular belief that fashion is silly, or that we need to be passive consumers, Katcher makes us see that fashion is actually a place from which we have tremendous consumer power, and as such, power to make a political statement, and power to change the world.
Did you know that entire species have gone extinct due to the fashion industry, and that the leather shoe industry is one of the main drivers of climate change? Have you heard that it is leather, not meat, that is by far the most profitable element of factory farming animals such as cows and pigs? Did you know that the wool is actually being pulled over your eyes when it comes to the sustainability and ethics of the wool industry itself?
Listen as Joshua Katcher, New York fashion designer, entrepreneur, author and educator, speaks openly about the truth behind how animals are bred, farmed, trapped and slaughtered for their skin, fur and hair, and elucidates for us why making ethical fashion choices matters.
Katcher, named one of the Top 20 Most Influential Vegans of 2019 by Veg News Magazine, is founder of both The Discerning Brute the world’s first men’s vegan lifestyle website and Brave GentleMan, the first vegan lifestyle menswear brand in the world. He has not only taught at both Parsons and LIM college in New York, but is also a leading lecturer on vegan fashion around the world. Katcher has lobbied in the United States for sustainable and ethical fashion and is on the Advisory Board for The New Fashion Initiative. In 2019, he published Fashion Animals, the first book dedicated to understanding how and why animals are exploited by the fashion industry.
In this fascinating and eye-opening interview, Katcher shares his story of how and why he started The Discerning Brute and Brave GentleMan, and why it is crucial that each of us becomes aware of the chain of events behind our purchases, and starts to take our purchasing power seriously.
Katcher and Kathryn discuss how veganism, the renunciation of animal products from our lives, is a position and action that is about much more than just food choices: it is an ethical statement about how we want to live in the world in order to take care of, and protect, animals, the planet, and our own bodies. While cutting-edge science now recognizes the complex, sentient and emotional lives of non-human animals, they continue to be exploited, used and abused on a mind-boggling scale not only for food, but for household items, fashion items, car-interiors, the list goes on. This treatment of living beings as nothing more than commodities to be used by us, is not only antiquated but egregious in nature.
Katcher educates us on how the fashion industry and the design industry have a tremendous global impact on billions of animals annually, and millions of workers as well as on our ecosystem. He makes us think about the systems hidden behind the products we purchase, and emphasizes that it is the systems themselves, not only our personal choices, that we need to be aware of, think about, and change. Kathryn and he discuss just how difficult it is to do the right things when it comes to our consumer choices, and how easy it is to do the wrong things. This is in no small part due to the plethora of cheap products, but it is also due to lack of labeling, labeling schemes, and misleading claims by companies.
“We are so disconnected from the way things are made and supply chains and that is a really, really big problem, and what that results in is something called aesthetic irrationality, where, because a product looks good or tastes good, that goodness, in and of itself becomes the justification . . .” – Joshua Katcher
Katcher points out that when a product is cheap, there is a reason, and it is often a dark one. Listen as he debunks some of the myths we subscribe to regarding fashion, and helps us to understand why we need to challenge social norms surrounding not only food, but also what we put on our bodies. Contrary to popular belief that fashion is silly, or that we need to be passive consumers, Katcher makes us see that fashion is actually a place from which we have tremendous consumer power, and as such, power to make a political statement, and power to change the world.
37 min