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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Leather - a dead animal on your shameful back, or very teh sexy, or neither, or both?

  
  

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Goodness Gracious Meme
14:45 / 20.09.05
I'm surprised that none of our Matrix Warriors have weighed in on the leather trousers issue.

Sorry SW, did you mean 'satisfied that...'?

That might just be me.
 
 
modern maenad
14:47 / 20.09.05
Would I be right in thinking that the production of things like milk and eggs requires that animals be killed

A few facts and figures (groan). Dairy cows have a natural life span of around 25 yrs, yet most are slaughtered between 5 and 7 yrs of age due to exhaustion (milk yields go down, chronic osteoporosis kicks in). They are kept in a constant state of pregnancy and lactation, as, like all mammals, they don't give milk if they don't give birth (calves are removed within 1 to 3 days of birth). Nowadays cows are routinely milked through pregnancy. The milk yield of the average cow is now double what it was in the 1950's, and is currently more than 10 times what a calf could consume - hence the need for regular milking. Its estimated that around one third of UK dairy cows are lame at any one time, and that a third suffer from mastites (teat/udder infection), both the result of such huge milk production. In the USA a hormone (Bovine Somatotropin) is used to increase yield further, which last time I heard is on its way to UK/Europe. Cows basically have a shit life, both in terms of the daily conditions they live in and what they have to go through as milk/calf producers. More info here
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
17:23 / 20.09.05
Yr figs pretty much OTM for chicken, Brunner. Tesco value chickens (yerk) often come in at under two quid. I got a big fat one from an organic butcher and it was eight (I still think this seems a bit cheap, tbh - all meat seems v cheap to me, except steak and anything from Fresh and Wild).
 
 
lekvar
20:51 / 20.09.05
I'd like to be able to kick my leather habit, but I've been disappointed with the quality of leather substitutes I've bought. Pleather and the like doesn't hold up very well and it's petroleum-based so when you discard it it just sits in a landfill forever. Leather can take a great deal of abuse and still be usable a decade later so that if you don't want it, chances are that someone else will.

For every pair of leather shoes I've had I've gone through 4 pairs of vegan shoes, and every time I throw them out (they're not recyclable) I feel like an ass. Leather alternatives also don't seem to handle being repaired very well. Maybe I just need to find a proper craftsperson.

I do try to bear in mind that some poor beast has suffered and died for my wardrobe, so I try to keep my consumption to a minimum and repair the items I have rather than buying new when the fashion changes, or buy used if possible.

I do like the way leather looks, and I'd get a pair of leather trousers if it weren't a pointless extravagance/if I weren't exactly the sort of guy who shouldn't be wearing leather trousers.

As to the "using everything but the oink" argument, I remember hearing that animals raised for leather were rarely used for meat and vice versa, making the waste/cruelty involved in both markets essentially doubled. Can anyone confirm or refute this?
 
 
Loomis
12:57 / 22.09.05
This is one of the things that makes vegetarianism (as opposed to veganism) problematic to me. Would I be right in thinking that the production of things like milk and eggs requires that animals be killed. Are vegetarians really doing much to distance themselves from the routine slaughter?

I don't see your point here Smoothly. Surely every life saved is a step in the right direction? Abstaining from eating meat means fewer animals are killed. The fact that one could go further and eschew all animal products doesn't negate the fact that some lives have been saved. There's always more you can do, but that's no argument to do nothing.

I must confess to a bit of a beef (ho ho) about the above viewpoint which is something I hear from a lot of meat eaters, almost as if it's their reason for not being vegetarian (not implicating you in that Smoothly). Funnily enough in my experience it is rare for a vegan to make such a comment regarding their vegetarian cousins.
 
 
Loomis
13:21 / 22.09.05
I'm a little uncertain about the dichotomy of leather (natural) vs synthetic (unnatural). Turning animal hide into useable leather is an extremely toxic process. Check this out, from the PETA website:

Although leathermakers like to tout their products as “biodegradable” and “eco-friendly,” the process of tanning stabilizes the collagen or protein fibers so that they actually stop biodegrading.

Until the late 1800s, animal skin was air- or salt-dried and tanned with vegetable tannins or oil, but today animal skin is turned into finished leather with a variety of much more dangerous substances, including mineral salts, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, and various oils, dyes, and finishes, some of them cyanide-based.

Most leather produced in the U.S. is chrome-tanned. All wastes containing chromium are considered hazardous by the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to the toxic substances mentioned above, tannery effluent also contains large amounts of other pollutants, such as protein, hair, salt, lime sludge, sulfides, and acids.

Among the disastrous consequences of this noxious waste is the threat to human health from the highly elevated levels of lead, cyanide, and formaldehyde in the groundwater near tanneries. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the incidence of leukemia among residents in an area surrounding one tannery in Kentucky was five times the national average.16 Arsenic, a common tannery chemical, has long been associated with lung cancer in workers who are exposed to it on a regular basis. Several studies have established links between sinus and lung cancers and the chromium used in tanning.17 Studies of leather-tannery workers in Sweden and Italy found cancer risks “between 20% and 50% above [those] expected.”18

. . .

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, tanneries have largely shifted operations worldwide from developed to undeveloped nations, where labor is cheap and environmental regulations are lax.


As far as non-leather clothing goes, the stuff I have is quite good. I bought some Doc Martin shoes from Vegetarian Shoes in Brighton and after wearing them to work every day for almost three years they're still going strong. Not sure if they still stock them, but these are similar:



I also have a couple of belts from there. The one I wear daily to work is kind of faded, but I haven't tried anything on it. Maybe the same stuff i put on the shoes could bring it back to life. The thicker belt that I wear with casual clothes is in excellent shape, but I don't wear it that often. I also have a wallet I got somewhere online that still looks great after a few years.

So all in all my non-leather products have aged very well and look good.
 
 
Smoothly
13:22 / 22.09.05
Hey Loomis, I don’t mind the implication, cos it’s probably pretty justified. That is kinda what I’m saying (or at least suggesting / asking to be put straight).

My point is that if you drink milk, you are contributing to animals being killed (for the reasons maenad outlines) in just the same way that people who eat meat are. If everyone became vegetarian, but continued to consume eggs, milk etc, animals would still have to be slaughtered, wouldn’t they? Maybe fewer animals, but if meat eaters are responsible for the murder of (some) animals, so are non-vegan vegetarians, no? Am I just wrong about that, Loomis?
 
 
Persephone
18:23 / 22.09.05
I think that Loomis is saying that just because animals are harmed in the eating of milk and eggs is not a good enough reason not to change from eating meat, milk, and eggs to eating milk and eggs.
 
 
Brunner
07:03 / 23.09.05
Mmm, lots of food for thought here (ha ha).

I know it has nothing to do with leather, but seeing as we have had an explanation of the horrors suffered by dairy cows, does anyone know if anything bad has to be inflicted on a chicken to make it lay an egg? I'm not talking battery hens kept in squalid conditions, I'm referring to ultra free range organic chickens, perhaps ones I could keep myself?
 
 
Loomis
09:26 / 23.09.05
Maybe fewer animals, but if meat eaters are responsible for the murder of (some) animals, so are non-vegan vegetarians, no?

That’s true, but fewer deaths is always a good thing and something to be strived for. It only really becomes a problem if a vegetarian is taking the moral high ground over the meat eater, as though being vegetarian is a cruelty-free existence. But again, the image of the high-ground-taking vege is an illusion I find propagated regularly by omnivores though I never see it myself. So many meat-eaters I’ve met go on the defensive about being judged before I’ve said a word to them and it gets extremely trying at times.

We’re all complicit in the deaths of animals and humans across the planet, and it’s impossible to quantify our total impact on the lives of other beings through all the little choices we make day to day. But that doesn’t make it impossible to say “x causes suffering and death therefore I will abstain from x.”

I think I see your point though Smoothly. If A, B and C all contribute to animal deaths then why is giving up A better than giving up C? There are two ways of looking at it I guess.

Firstly, it's to do with death being a necessary component of eating meat, whereas eggs and dairy don't necessitate death. Of course in commercial production, cows and chickens are killed when they are no longer productive, not to mention that they live probably a worse life than animals raised solely for food. But I suppose it's easier for people to view the situation, rightly or wrongly, as something that can be improved with govt regulation, free range, etc. Don't know if free range means that the animals don't get sent to the knackery when they stop producing though.

Perhaps it depends on whether you favour quality of life vs taking of life. I believe that quality of life is far more important, so an animal that has a happy life then gets shot for meat is in a better situation than one that has a shitty life producing eggs, even if it never gets killed, though many veges would say that the death aspect is more important so we should stop that and work down from there. Which brings me to my second point …

A lot of it comes down to labels, which is something that bugs me a bit. If you give up meat, you get a nice shiny label of vegetarian, but if you give up eggs and dairy but not meat then you don't get to call yourself anything, despite the fact that you may well have prevented the same amount of suffering. Maybe there’ll be a label for that one day. Or indeed a label for someone who will consume any animal product that is free range. Freerangarian? As annoying as labels can be, it makes it a lot easier when going to dinner to be able to call yourself vegetarian or vegan rather than saying “well I don’t eat this but I eat this”.

Not to even get into how problematic and ill-defined the term “free range” can be. In my opinion it’s scandalous that the govt hasn’t stepped in and set laws for this kind of thing. The fact that it is ok to do to a pig or chicken the kind of things that would get you arrested if you did it to your dog is mind-boggling.
 
 
Smoothly
12:44 / 23.09.05
I'm a meat-eater, Loomis, but I have to say that my experience of vegetarians and vegans is much the same as yours - remarkably loath to take any moral high ground, and I've never been made to feel got-at or defensive. In fact, there seems to be a correlation between vegetarianism and social gifts generally that I can't believe is coincidental.

I think what you say about labels is really interesting, and would be a good thread on its own. And you point about judging these things more in terms of the number of lives conserved (how efficient a consumer of animal products one is), makes me wonder about the relative ethics of eating a beef steak or whale meat compared with a chicken or a prawn sandwich.

Which kinda brings me back round to something more ontopic. Can we get back to the fur thing? So far we seem to have discounted the by-product argument (extra minks aren't been killed for their meat), but is it a size thing? Is it the greater loss of life that makes a chinchilla coat more loathsome than a cowhide jacket?
 
 
Loomis
13:13 / 23.09.05
In fact, there seems to be a correlation between vegetarianism and social gifts generally that I can't believe is coincidental.

It's the lack of protein in our diet that leaves us without the strength for confrontation. But back to the topic:

I wonder if the fur thing has partly to do with the fact that the animals are being killed purely for fashion reasons, whereas leather is seen as performing a function that cannot be replicated effectively. There is a widespread belief that leather alternatives don't do as good a job, aren't as durable, etc. By contrast, fur is generally worn because of fashion rather than function; you could wear a parka to keep warm if that were your aim.

Not to mention that it looks more like the living thing, which could be a factor, though I wonder if that is misguided. Does it cast a person who has no problem with undisguised dead animals as worse than a person who has no problem with the killing as long as the flesh/skin is processed before they see it?
 
 
Axolotl
15:28 / 23.09.05
Has the anti-fur movement got an element of class war in it? It's a lot easier to get support against a bunch of rich folk wearing fur, and less likely to alienate the man in the street.
 
 
Smoothly
16:46 / 23.09.05
I think that impression is reasonably common, but I'm not sure if it's really accurate given that lots of 'rich folk' seem not to like it either. Fur also has some reasonably strong non-rich associations (the Inuit and Sami mentioned earlier).

I think there's some truth to what Loomis says, that in rich, temperate countries, fur is seen as an obscene indulgence. But I think it's seen as an indulgence because its also seen as doing that job that bit better than synthetic alternatives. I have a friend who's a mountaineer and he wouldn't be without his Husky fur hat (yes, doggie). Although I think there are some pretty realistic synthetic furs now, I bet most people could still feel the difference. I think it's true that leather is seen by the majority to be broadly the best thing to make shoes out of, but I think fur is desired for quality reasons too.

And it could be that fur is less disguised than leather, but I'd struggle to relate to someone who said that they don't think of leather as an animal product. Or why they would object to fur in particular because of that.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
16:27 / 24.09.05
It's all a case of where you draw the line, isn't it? I'm veggie but not vegan, and wear (but don't buy) leather- ie I have a couple of biker jackets and a coat which I've had since BEFORE I stopped eating meat (and come to think of it one jacket which I bought since, but bought second-hand, and still feel a bit dodgy about). I think there is a difference between buying new leather and 2nd hand- money going to Oxfam, say, is not going into the leather industry- but I realise this sounds like self-justification, and also doesn't cover why I wouldn't buy fur second-hand.

I'm kind of contradictory on this... must be to do with being human, I guess.

I used to wear leather trousers- more Zodiac Mindwarp/Carl McCoy-style than Jim (or even George) Morrison. But they eventually fell apart.
 
  

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