When wild animals become fashion designers…
updated the 6 October 2015 à 23:51
You need a pair of jeans? How about a pair designed by lions, tigers or even bears? We kid you not! And it’s all for a good cause.
The Japanese zoo fundraising group – Mineko Club – has launched an unusual idea to raise funds to restore one of the top tourism spots in Japan – the Kamine Zoo, Hitachi. It has turned wild animals like bears, lions and tigers into designers to create unique “distressed denim” which are then auctioned off for a good cause.
the process
Thick rubber tyres and balls get covered with denim fabric and are then thrown as home-made toys into the yard for lions, tigers and bears to play with.
This is where the creation of the authentic “distressed denim” begins. The animal-designers are free to customize the denim material, by chewing, tearing and destroying it.
Once they are done playing, the toys are retrieved and the customized fabric is removed. The most stylish fragments are then used to craft the famous Zoo Jeans.
So far, two pairs of the “pure animal instinct” jeans were auctioned on Yahoo’s Japanese website, for a cool $3,500 ($1,500 per pair). All benefits went to the Zoo and the World Wildlife Fund.
All that we can say is that we are truly impressed! This is ‘wild’ fashion at its best.
And to those who claim that animals shouldn’t be exploited for human needs, the group kindly responds with this: “We do believe this campaign was good for animals to relieve their stress and help enrich their environment. However, the toys were carefully made for safety and we never forced the animals to play with them.”
Watch the video:
Lindsay POUI-DI
