It’s a testament to her dedication that founder Emmanuelle Rienda has been able to keep Los Angeles‘ Vegan Fashion Week going for five years, and through a pandemic.
On Monday night, she celebrated with a red carpet event and runway show at the California Market Center that highlighted Hollywood’s role in the animal rights conversation.
The evening drew animal-loving guests including “Never Have I Ever” actress Richa Moorjani, “American Pie” star Tara Reid, up-and-comer Mychal-Bella Bowman, motivational speaker Jay Shetty, and Maggie Baird, the actress-activist mother of pop stars Billie Eilish and Finneas, who came dressed in a Vegan Tiger coat with a apple skin clutch by Guillaume Larquemain.
“I didn’t ever want to eat animals as a child, nor did my brother, and we grew up in Colorado. Our father was a hunter but we just didn’t want to eat it,” said Baird, who founded Support and Feed, a nonprofit dedicated to a global shift to an equitable, plant-based food system. “I’m honored we’ve been able to be a part of this changing world and getting people turned onto plant-based food. In the Billie world, we’ve been able to have vegan food on her tour and get arenas to have vegan food and get people aware of the connection of what they eat to climate change. We’ve known for decades, in 1981, I saw an infographic about McDonald’s hamburgers and the Amazon rainforest, I read ‘Diet for a New America’…But the amazing thing is now it’s a little more obvious and people are really listening and asking questions.”
Hollywood has been instrumental in getting the fashion industry to change some of its ways, especially to stop using fur.
Maggie Baird
Getty Images
“It’s always a thing, if you have some power do you work with a small brand, do you work with a big brand and there’s valid points in both. You can highlight a small brand but if you can get a big brand to change their policies and ways of making things, that has an major impact. That’s been an exciting thing to see,” Baird said.
“In the beginning, you’d say things and get pushback and eye rolls. Then people start to listen, and that’s been amazing to see these major designers change.”
When asked if she thought Eilish, a Gucci ambassador, had an influence on the brand’s decision to drop fur, Baird said, “100 percent and there’s more to come. And Oscar de la Renta was amazing. That was a call where we said, ‘fur — that’s a deal breaker,’ and they responded.”
Among the designs featured on the runway were apple skin cowboy boots by ethical and sustainable Netherlands shoe brand A Perfect Jane, Guillaume Larquemain’s Made in France, seed-shaped apple skin clutches, and sexy cutout evening suits and separates from Houston-based sustainability consultant Dominique Side’s line Nikki Green.
