Abstract
I have always been very interested in fashion. For the last six months, I have been working as a communication manager's assistant at Victoria Couture, a luxury brand company that deals with clothing and accessories (bags, jewels and watches) for women and for children. My job profile consisted of product placement, that is to have as many photographs of our products and as many articles as possible in the media, in order to increase the visibility of the company and the customer's awareness of our products. During that internship, the communication team (my boss, his colleague and I) had to develop the visibility of the winter collection in the media, especially in French fashion magazines. Part of the collection that we had to promote consisted of fur coats or down jackets that had some fur on the hood. This was one of the fashion hits of that season. But, as the clothing we were promoting was for women and children, we did not really know whether we had to emphasize on those fur coats to make them as likable as possible. The team was in a dilemma, as we did not really know how to hand over the "fur subject" to the media.
Extract
[...] Moreover, con-fur activists want to make people aware about the fact that some animals are hunt (like seals or bears for example) in spite of the fact that they are considered as endangered species. It is thus quite complicated to know on what category customers are: pro or against the wear of fur. Suppliers (who have to avoid lobbies such as PETA) When a company deals with fur, it has to be very careful with the origin of it. Indeed, Fur is obtained either by trapdoors or by breeding, which represents 85% of the world's fur trade. [...]
[...] Thus, animals have to be treated with respect in order for them to grow well but also for assuring the farmer of a decent productivity. Some international laws were set up during the nineties in order to ensure good treatments to the animals. Wild fur represents 15% of the market, and mostly takes place in Canada and Russia, and the trapping business obeys to well established national and international rules. The aim of those regulations is the limiting of the overhunting of endangered species. Thus, they consider that the trapdoor of furs may only concern the surplus of wild animals. [...]
[...] Thus, only the surplus of animals will be part of the fur industry and the protection of the animals' survival will be regulated. The suffering and the agony of the animals such as foxes, minks and raccoons are also controlled by the international fur federation, even though it is implied for hunters and farmers that animals have to be treated with respect and should not suffer too much when they are sacrificed, as the quality of their skin will depend on if they are killed with decency or not. [...]
[...] Victoria Couture is a fashion luxury clothing brand that has a reputation to hold. Indeed, it was for the brand creator (who is also the artistic director of the firm) a real issue to work on noble and rare materials in order to provide to customers top quality products that are luxury ones. Thus, leather is used as much as cashmere and?fur It seems obvious for a designer that works in the luxury clothing sector to use a many rare and noble fabrics as possible, so did the brand's artistic director. [...]
[...] Writing the paper will require additional individual research on a specific company, or industry, or around a specific issue. For example, one could focus the paper analysis on a specific company, or on the ethical issues facing a specific industry, or on a specific issue across different industries. Summary INTRODUCTION I. DILEMMA DESCRIPTION An introduction of the business ethics dilemma situation, presenting the various (e.g. economic, legal, social, cultural, political, psychological, ethical) aspects that in your opinion matter to analyze the possible decisions different choices should be presented and their rationale explained) II. [...]
