The panel
A distinguished panel of experts in the vegan fashion industry spoke to students and guests at London Metropolitan University as part of the Should fashion go vegan? lively debate. Speakers included Bel Jacobs, former fashion editor of Metro who now freelances on ethical fashion and animal rights; Marta Canga, vegan fashion influencer; Sascha Camilli, founder and editor of Vilda Luxe Vegan Living; Omar Mansoor, London-based fashion designer and Vanita Badlani Bagri, founder of cruelty-free LaBante London
Bel Jacobs
By Simone Limbu and Karl-Kaspar Roostalu
Bel Jacobs was one of the first fashion editors to put an entirely ethical fashion spread in the Metro newspaper. The former fashion editor has had quite a journey as an ethical fashion and animal rights freelancer.
Bel started her journalist career in environmentalism but got deeply side-tracked when she joined Metro in 1999. She says: “I was young and excited but I started to feel uncomfortable because of the sheer quantity of stuff coming at me – 500-700 emails a day just trying to promote product and it was stressful.”
While working at the London-based daily newspaper she never covered fur but she wrote a lot about leather on her page. She says: “At that time, I thought I was staying true to my values however I didn’t know the true process of leather and its impact.”
In 2013, after the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh, Bel decided to leave Metro and focus purely on ethical fashion and became part of Extinction Rebellion fashion.
As an animal right activist, her proudest moments are going to schools regularly, and encouraging the youngsters to ask themselves if it’s right to accept the suffering of sentient beings.
Bel is starting her first movement called Animal Rebellion Islington – a movement which works alongside Extinction Rebellion and highlights the climate emergency from the perspective of animals. During London Fashion Week, she will be working with the Extinction Rebellion fashion team to target their campaigns.
Marta Canga
By Natasha Drakakis
At just twenty-six years old, Marta Canga is one of the top vegan fashion bloggers in the UK. Marta, of Spanish heritage, has worked with well-known brands such as Lush, Holland and Barrett, Bare Minerals and many more. Her goal: to inspire vegan approaches to suppliers, producers and the general public.
Marta studied Political Science and European Studies but turned to fashion after becoming a vegan due to family diseases such as cancer. She looked into her own beauty products and fashion, which created a domino effect that resulted in working in the field. She then became a columnist for Simply Vegan Magazine before taking on further roles.
Marta says she wants to portray a genuine approach in her blog as “people are tired of seeing ads”. But despite all the work she does, she doesn’t necessarily see herself as an influencer.
“I hate that term…there’s so much more to a person than just influencing purchases. I think I consider myself an activist. I consider myself someone that has a voice and conveys a message,” she says.
For Marta, Instagram is her main social media platform, and she has over 18,000 followers. As a world traveller, she knows that veganism sustainability varies in different countries.
“It is growing slowly but it has nothing to do with how big it is in the UK. I think London specifically is huge for veganism and I think that the rest of the countries are following.”
Omar Mansoor
By Mame Sarr and Nureen Noor
Omar Mansoor’s latest collection Fashion Pack at the London Fashion Week SS20 echoes the beautiful work of Mother Nature with the choice of flowing, soft materials and seascape colours.
The talented British-Pakistani designer has made his dream come true, by combining fashion and sustainability.
Hard work always pays off: in 2013, the couturier attended stitching classes. He perfected his work method and his eye for detail, by deepening his skills.
Reintroducing fusion clothing into modern fashion by using sustainable and ethical material is, for Mansoor, the answer to consumer demand.
“Ten years back on Holloway Road I could not see vegan options on the menu of coffee shops,” he says, “but now you have any type of vegan brownie or food. It’s the same with sustainable or vegan fashion.”
For Mansoor, ethical fashion is not for everyone yet, but it’s something that communicates a cleaner lifestyle and shows people that “you can shop without making animals suffer”.
Describing himself as a Veganuary followed, Mansoor does not follow a strict regime – but for him that does not contradict a clean and respectful lifestyle for the planet.
Despite the current enthusiasm for ethical fashion, Mansoor doubts that in 10 years’ time fashion will be 100% vegan. “We need to think about people that don’t want to be vegan – you can’t impose a lifestyle on people,” he says. But he nonetheless wants to see vegan ranges in every fashion brand.
Vanita Badlani Bagri
By Wiktoria Ciolek-Poniatowska and Maame Takyi
Vanita Badlani Bagri’s life changed when she walked past a butcher’s shop at the age of 18 and saw animals being chopped up.
She’s now CEO of LaBante London. When she started her vegan brand in 2012, Vanita had her priorities straight. She understood that it had to be cruelty-free, which would stop putting the lives of animals at risk.
Vanita says that vegan brands weren’t popular back then, so it was hard to start up a sustainable business in the UK without funding. She had to borrow money from friends and family until someone at a bank gave her a break.
“He spoke to his boss and gave us a £25,000 overdraft in 10 minutes because he realized how hard it was for entrepreneurs starting out in the UK.,” she recalls.
As for her brand, she is more focused on the ‘classic and elegant’ elements rather than the trend-driven aspect of fashion. “The more trend-driven you are, the less sustainable you are,” she says.
She finds female icons like Audrey Hepburn very sophisticated and very elegant. “I think they’re classic and timeless.”
Apart from concentrating on sustainability, LaBante London does campaigns and donates to charities, including mental health organisations. “I think with the way life moving so fast, mental health gets neglected, especially in youngsters nowadays.
“We put a lot of thought into it. And what that means is that we do put sustainability before any other element in our business. It’s the ethos of the brand.”
She adds: “Each of our handbags saves anything from two plastic bottles to 25 plastic bottles from a landfill.”
Sascha Camilli
By Katia Borges
For the founder and editor of Vilda Luxe Vegan Living, having a vegan lifestyle is all-encompassing. “Being vegan opened a career path for me,” says Sascha Camilli. Veganism enabled her to put out a magazine, book and blog, and it was all because she chose to never eat – or wear – meat.
Camilli believes there’s a lot of health benefits to being vegan. You get better skin and hair. You sleep better. You feel better in day-to-day life.
Being vegan isn’t just about food – it’s about clothes as well, she says. “We can’t wear anything to do with animals,” she told Vegan Vogue. Vegans even eschew the animal entertainment industry: they don’t support zoos, marine parks, safaris, circuses that use animals and many more animal attractions, and they would never swim with dolphins.
Beauty products are important as well. Testing products on animals is something vegans are completely against. It shouldn’t be done. She has a strong opinion on using wool. She’s completely against it and hates it being used for clothes.
Sascha doesn’t mind the fact that some people aren’t vegan, and she is comfortable being around people that are non-vegan as long as they are respectful and try to understand her way of living. She says that she doesn’t talk about being vegan on daily basis unless she’s asked. People like asking questions and Sascha is always willing to help and give advice and her opinion on the subject.
On her social media platforms, Sascha tries to be as honest as she can – and true to the people that follow her. She ignores the negative comments because people like to complicate things when it’s not really that complicated. “Being vegan doesn’t have to be complicated,” she states matter-of-factly.
She thinks in an ideal world gradually everyone will – and should – become vegan.
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