OP-ED: Anna Fitzpatrick on Vogue Italia’s 'photo-free' sustainability issue

Vogue Italia’s one-off illustrated covers are a step in the right direction, but it is not enough… says Anna Fitzpatrick

January is the time for bold statements, plans and action. Enter Vogue Italia, where, for their first issue of the new decade they boldly declare that “no photo shoot production was required in the making of this issue.” 

Instead the magazine features illustrated stories and a series of hand-drawn covers created “without travelling, shipping clothes or polluting in any way.” The front covers, illustrated by the likes of Yoshitaka Amano known for his work in the Final Fantasy gaming franchise, Paolo Ventura, Delphine Desane, Milo Manara, all depict models dressed in Gucci.

It’s an up-front, and clever, move to address the environmental costs involved in the production of photographs we see dashed across fashion print media. In the editor’s letter prefacing the magazine, Emanuele Farneti (Editor In Chief) highlighted the costly process of producing these images each issue: “One hundred and fifty people involved. About twenty flights and a dozen or so train journeys. Forty cars on standby. Sixty international deliveries. Lights switched on for at least ten hours nonstop, partly powered by gasoline-fuelled generators. Food waste from the catering services. Plastic to wrap the garments. Electricity to recharge phones, cameras …” The money saved by the magazine will be donated to help restore the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, a Venice cultural institution damaged by flooding in November. He also revealed that Vogue Italia’s parent company, Condé Nast Italia, will only be using compostable plastic to wrap the magazine in the future, a decision he said comes with “substantial but necessary added cost.” 

The “most honest way to face a problem is starting by admitting it”, Farneti told the New York Times. It will be interesting to see how Vogue Italia continue to push the sustainability agenda. What, if any, is the response from readers and advertisers to this bold and, somewhat unexpected, move? Now the problem is being discussed in a more open and transparent way, will any deeper changes be enacted? 

I want to be positive and optimistic, it’s a new decade after all. Yet, as I write Australia burns, and huge instability hangs over Iran. It’s the start of a new year and a new decade, my hope is that we see the big changes we need. Sure, sustainability might be going ‘mainstream’ and brands are virtue signalling their engagement— but what real, deep and systemic changes have we actually seen over the past decade? And not just in fashion. Action on climate change globally is weak yet time is ticking. As the IPCC report in XXXX stated we have just a few years to turn things around. The admission of what it takes to produce the photographs in the fashion media is an honest first step. However, as a one-off action, it’s far from the systemic change the fashion industry needs to address global sustainability concerns.