It’s 1920 and Guccio Gucci sells his first leather bags to horsemen in Florence. They know him: for the highest quality and for the best craftsmen, that build these leather bags. 1921 the brand Gucci is born. Time travel: 92 years later, we’re in 2013 and not that much has changed, except that there’s probably not that many horsemen out there buying Gucci bags. It’s November 2013 and my first Gucci Clutch arrives, which was just a few days ago manufactured in Florence and shipped to Vienna. It’s like having the italian spirit, that I loved so much living there, right in my hands. In a very fancy, glamorous way, of course.
Having made the step to base my current and future buying decisions on the fact if a brand cares about sustainability or not, going for Gucci is right in many ways. Apart from several sustainable products or shoes soles and packaging, Gucci has now taken a step towards THE tabu topic: python trade. Dont get me wrong: I never have and never will buy python. But for anyone who does: do you know where these animals come from? There’s two beautiful species out there, the Burmese and the Reticulated Python. And guess what: they’re skin is being collected for many python products coming from Asia. In order to protect these species and establish which pythons used in the industry are wild and which captive-bread, Kering (the company Gucci belongs to – btw Stella McCartney is also part of it!) has now launched the “Python Conservation Partnership”. The company has teamed up with the International Union for Conservation of Nature for this three year research project, in which they will monitor, improve sustainable sourcing and try to understand the impacts of python trade on local livelihoods.
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