Four naked activists from Extinction Rebellion took their “No Fashion on a Dead Planet” message to the NYFW The Blonds runway show on Wednesday, September 13 at 6:30 PM to amplify the urgent need for action on the climate crisis.
The protesters draped banners reading “Tell the naked truth about the climate crisis” and demanded an end to the use of fossil fuels. The four activists, with their mouths covered, stood in solidarity with those impacted by the flood in Libya, the wildfire in Maui, and all other communities already suffering as a result of the climate crisis.
Using outfits as a means of protest and a tool for societal change is part of a longstanding tradition. In the 1960s and 1970s, the “hippie” style of clothing became a central element of anti-Vietnam War protests, visibly representing the protesters’ anti-establishment views.
In the 20th century, suffragettes embraced a specific color palette that served as a powerful visual statement during parades and protests, symbolizing solidarity and unity. PETA, Vivienne Westwood, and Extinction Rebellion UK followed a series of environmental civil disobedience protests at Fashion Weeks. The New York chapter of the Extinction Rebellion movement opted for a naked protest to highlight human vulnerability in the face of climate collapse.
Governments and corporations neglect the climate and ecological breakdown, as highlighted by today’s action. The group emphasizes that the present socio-economic system cannot protect people from the crises to come, as it creates and ignores these crises due to its very structure.
Our key institutions — corporations and governments — function on quarterly profits and periodic elections, disregarding the long-term dangers to our survival. They commit to stealing from future generations to sustain a lifestyle that primarily benefits the few, the so-called “one per cent”.
Why “no fashion on a dead planet”?
The climate and ecological crisis are threatening everything on our planet, including fashion. A movement, which has no other recourse than to engage in unconventional means of protest, is responding with this action and similar actions to bring mass attention to the greatest emergency of our time.
All normal means of effecting change, appropriate to the scale of the catastrophe – including voting, petitioning, lobbying, etc. – have failed and continue to fail. Yet, the science clearly shows that we have only a very small window of time in which to end the use of fossil fuels and stop carbon emissions.
The group is also highlighting that the fashion industry’s reliance on fossil fuels actively contributes to climate change. Sustainability in apparel has major issues. Fashion conglomerates actively contribute to more than 8 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions; textile dyeing and finishing treatment given to fabric actively contributes to 17 to 20 percent of industrial water pollution; not to mention that incinerators or landfills actively receive nearly three-fifths of all clothing within a year of production.
Fashion-as-usual won’t be possible on a planet in which humanity fails to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
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