(Paris) Prompt to banish fur, fashion and leisure brands continue to make room for animal down in their down jackets, and even if synthetic padding remains the majority for this winter flagship garment, the alternatives bloom.
Posted yesterday at 9:57
Light, insulating, with swelling power: the properties of goose or duck down remain unequaled compared to petroleum-derived materials that still fill more than 80% of duvets and down jackets in the world, according to estimates by professionals in the downwear sector. feather.
Despite their higher cost, animal down puffer jackets are offered by almost all fashion and leisurewear brands, sold for 60 or 70 euros ($83 or $97) by C&A, Zara or H&M , and up to several thousand euros at Moncler or Louis Vuitton.
“More and more consumers are making sustainability a key factor in their purchasing decision. As down comes from natural sources, responsibly sourced down is a good option to include alongside synthetic materials,” says Julian Lings, sustainability manager at popular outdoor apparel brand The North Face.
In 2014, after having “been made aware of the risks of animal abuse in the food supply chain” providing it with its down, The North Face co-created, with the NGO Textile Exchange and a certification body, the RDS label guaranteeing in particular that the waterfowl are neither plucked alive nor force-fed.
“In 2020, the RDS standard covered 636 million birds worldwide,” says Textile Exchange. Downpass, another reference label, certified more than 5,700 tonnes of feathers and down in the same year, in a world market estimated at 180,000 tonnes (all uses combined) and dominated by China.
Less than 1% of palmipeds in the world – raised primarily for their meat – would still undergo live plucking, in China and Eastern Europe, according to the independent reference laboratory IDFL.
Flowers and even cigarette butts
Even more eco-responsible than feathers, its recycled version: Uniqlo, the down jacket giant famous for its ultralight version to slip under a coat, started from the idea of ”involving” customers, by inviting them to bring back the items they no longer wore: some 830,000 down jackets have been recovered since 2019 and their down reused in new collections.
A recycling program was also launched in mid-2021 by Moncler. The giant (listed on the stock exchange) of the luxury down jacket, which announced in January to give up fur like many fashion brands, however has no intention of doing without down.
Surprising alternatives also exist: H & M – a clothing giant that offers down jackets made from recycled down from pillows – innovates with a jacket with vegan filling “approved” by the animal rights organization Peta, containing wild flowers and sold for 249 euros ($345).
Less bucolic, but just as ecological, the start-up company TchaoMégot cleans up cigarette butts “without water or toxic products” to make an insulating material for construction or clothing: 4,500 butts are needed for a down jacket, for example.
“Companies that collect the butts of their employees for us order down jackets from us to “close the loop”. But we would like to go on a larger scale, according to our ethical values. However, we refused the proposals of large textile groups who wanted to send the fiber thousands of kilometers for the manufacture. If we recycle cigarette butts, it’s not to then dump CO2 by making them travel”, highlights Olympe Delaunay, communications officer.
Recycled or not, it is out of the question to use animal down for the Italian brand of down jackets Save the Duck, which above all wants to preserve them “from the cruelty that the sector imposes. In ten years, we have sold 5 million down jackets and thus saved more than 20 million” waterfowl, highlights its president Nicola Bargi, who indicates that he is using “more and more padding from the recycling of plastic bottles” to limit the environmental impact of synthetics.