Material World

One of the more controversial, if obscure, practices in the fashion world is “sand-blasting”, the process by which sand is fired at denim at high speeds: pow, pow! While this can make the fabric look cool, it also releases silica dust which can cause pulmonary disease. Good for the catwalk, not so good for the factory workers, as the Clean Clothes Campaign discovered, so last year it started asking brands, luxury and otherwise, to look at their production processes and do the right thing.

So far, so normal, except in the case of at least one of the targeted companies.On Wednesday Versace, which had been the subject of an online petition run by change.org, a site that provides platforms to help other activist groups coordinate online campaigns, that involved individuals signing on to ask Versace to stop sand-blasting (1,200 people put their names down) released a statement saying that “no sandblasting is performed by any of its suppliers” — currently or ever! And not only that, Versace supported the Clean Clothes Campaign in its mission to end all sandblasting production processes.

In other words, it promised it wouldn’t do something it had never done. Anyone else find this a little weird?

Here’s what I think is going on: Versace has decided to turn the usual approach to dealing with activist critics in the eco/ethical arena on its head. Instead of doing what luxury companies sometimes do in this situation — say nothing and hope the issue will go away, an approach that increasingly does not work — it has instead embraced its critics and joined the cause, thus neatly de-fanging them. Instead of fighting a rear-guard defensive action in the amorphous internet court of public opinion (a lengthy and difficult process) Versace has gone pro-active and thus taken all the heat out of the issue, at least as far as it is  concerned.

Change.org now says it is turning its focus to other companies about their sand-blasting jeans practices. So now I wonder: will these brands stick to their code of silence, or style themselves along the lines of Versace? If they do the latter, it could mark a new milestone in the way the luxury industry deals with its activist critics. Put another way: Don’t even try to beat ‘em: join ‘em!