Pythons skinned alive and left to die in agony. Alligators killed with hammers and chisels. This is the truly shocking reality behind fashion’s shameful new obsession:
At a slaughterhouse, deep in the Javanese jungle, blood-stained hands untie a wriggling sack and pull out a ten-foot long python.
The snake is stunned with a blow to the head from the back of a machete and a hose pipe expertly forced between its jaws. Next, the water is turned on and the reptile fills up — swelling like a balloon.
It will be left like that for ten minutes or so, a leather cord tied around its neck to prevent the liquid escaping.
Then its head is impaled on a meat hook, a couple of quick incisions follow, and the now-loosened skin peeled off with a series of brutal tugs – much like a rubber glove from a hand.
From there the skin will be sent to a tannery before being turned into luxury shoes or handbags. Finally, they will be snapped up by an army of pampered Western fashionistas desperate for the latest look and happy to pay thousands of pounds to get it.
Animal instincts: Naomi Cambell models a snake-skin dress at a Dolce & Gabbana show.
Meanwhile, back in Indonesia, the python’s peeled body is simply tossed on a pile of similarly stripped snakes. After a day or two of unimaginable agony it will die from the effects of shock or dehydration.
Barbaric, cruel, stomach turning – those are just a few of the words used by those who have witnessed snakes being skinned alive. But in Europe, the mention of reptile skin – be it snake, lizard, alligator or crocodile – draws a very different response and a very different vocabulary.
‘Exotic skins are hot right now, there’s a real buzz,’ enthuses designer Roberto Cavalli, who has dressed Kate Moss to Sharon Stone.
‘I love to use reptile skins because it excites me to take material that is seen as “wild” and mix it with a look that shouts glamour and sophistication.’
Sad to say, Cavalli is not alone in the fashion world in his attitude to the latest must-have ‘fabric’. The European Union is the world’s biggest importer of reptile skins.
Between 2000 and 2005, it is estimated that 3.4 million lizard, 2.9 million crocodile and 3.4 million snake skins were brought into the EU.
And this year, like never before, skin is most certainly ‘in’. Indeed, the hottest fashion debate in town is not about the ethics of the trade – but whether to opt for python or anaconda.
Take, for example, Jimmy Choo, makers of shoes and bags. The high-end fashion house’s £1,695 Rio clutch handbag is available in the skins of either of the above.
Or what about treading in Sienna Miller’s fashion footsteps with a pair of python-skin boots by the American designer Devi Kroell? Yours for just a shade under £1,000. Something else? Try Calvin Klein’s alligator jackets, Celine’s white python skirt or a metallic python bag by Zagliani – injected with silicone for an ultra-soft feel.
Jennifer Lopez has been spotted out and about sporting the Zag-bag while Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria’s passion for a giant £1,300 python bag by Prada saw websites inundated with drooling postings from envious fashion-watchers.
‘Wow will you look at that!!!,’ wrote one such contributor. ‘You get a lotta python for your money. It’s beautiful!’ But, as environmentalists are only too quick to point out, it looks a whole lot more beautiful on the snake.
On the banks of the River Arno there’s an Italian town whose motto goes as follows: ‘Always make sure people walk on Santa Croce shoes and dress in Santa Croce skins’.
As the saying implies, Santa Croce has been the home of the Italian tanning industry for centuries. But, while it has traditionally specialised in treating hides from cattle and sheep, nowadays the factories are full of the skins of exotic species such as snakes, crocodiles and ostriches.
Make no mistake, it’s big business – the Centro Rettili, one of the largest tanneries, last year dealt with 3,000 individual crocodile skins and 50,000 snakes – producing 170,000 metres of python skin (roughly 100 miles, the distance from London to Birmingham).
The three-storey factory is run by Roberto Bachi, who set up the company in 1985 and has 20 employees.
Their work consists of turning the sundried skins that arrive at the tannery into a material that is both workable and highly desirable.
‘We work for all the big designer labels – Versace, Gucci, Chanel, La Croix and Fendi and the skins are used for handbags, belts and shoes,’ explains Mr Bachi.
