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8 January, 2020

Vogue Italia Ditches Photoshoots To Highlight The Industry’s Huge Environmental Footprint

One of the world’s most glamorous fashion magazines, Vogue Italia, has ditched all photography for its first 2020 issue to do its bit for global warming and sustainability.

The magazine’s January edition has been put together “without travelling, shipping clothes or polluting in any way” in an effort to counteract the “significant environmental impact associated with publishing a fashion magazine”.

Instead, the magazine’s editors have simply decided to illustrate all the issue’s imagery and fashion shoots.

Editor-in-chief Emanuele Farneti said it was the first time in the fabled title’s history that it had gone photo-free.

In his ed’s letter, Farneti said: “In the global debate on sustainability and the values that Vogue has pledged to promote over the next decade … there is one aspect that is particularly dear to me: intellectual honesty. In our case, this means admitting that there is a significant environmental impact associated with publishing a fashion magazine.”

To highlight the damage a single magazine can have on the planet, Farneti revealed that Vogue’s September issue required the efforts of 150 people, 20 flights, at least a dozen train journeys; not to mention all the paper and ink. Farneti added that the use of plastic and electricity, as well as food waste of the eight photo stories within the magazine, were all factors to the decision to make an environmentally conscious January edition.

Not only has the issue dispensed with photography, but it also aims to draw attention to recycling fashion and reducing waste in the garment industry.

The magazine will feature eight different illustrated covers from artists including David Salle, Vanessa Beecroft, Cassi Namoda, Milo Manara, Delphine Desane, Paolo Ventura and Yoshitaka Amano.

Models were styled in Gucci and then drawn by each respective artist. Better still, the money saved will go towards restoring Venice’s Querini Stampalia Onlus – a student foundation that was severely damaged by the city’s floods in November.

Vogue’s publisher, Condé Nast, has also announced it will only use compostable plastic to wrap its magazines going forward.

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