A climate activist paraded in the Louis Vuitton fashion show

PARIS – A climate activist, carrying a white banner with the words “Overconsumption = Extinction” in bold type, joined the models on the catwalk of the Louis Vuitton show at the Louvre, the latest event of Paris Fashion Week.

Marie Cohuet, 26, walked the entire length of the podium and even posed for a few seconds in front of cameras before security guards jostled her. Outside, around 30 activists from three environmental organizations, including Extinction Rebellion, put on an alternative show, wearing gas masks, while fans and passers-by watched the arrivals of guests, including Venus Williams and Regina King. .

“We walked to demand that fashion realize that the world is on fire,” Ms Cohuet wrote on Twitter later that night.

It was not the first round of Extinction Rebellion on the podium. During the Dior Spring 2020 show, one of his supporters appeared with a yellow banner that read: “We are all victims of fashion”. For several moments, spectators, including the CEO of Dior, were unsure whether she was part of the final.

And it probably won’t be the last. “For the next fashion weeks, specifies Franck Deyris, public relations manager of Extinction Rebellion France, we would like large groups to think that we can disrupt something that they organize a long time in advance and on which they spend a lot. silver.”

Ms Cohuet said she and four other protesters took advantage of Catherine Deneuve’s arrival to sneak into the show, pretending to be on staff, but she was the only one who managed to get on the podium.

“We chose LVMH symbolically because it is one of the most influential houses,” she said, referring to the parent company of Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury goods company in terms of turnover. “LVMH is making frantic statements about being the most advanced in the sector in terms of limiting their impacts, but we can see that in reality this is not true.

A Louis Vuitton spokesperson said the brand had not commented.

Ms Cohuet said the guards took her banner and ejected it through a door facing rue de Rivoli. Two of the activists who accompanied her, she said, were arrested and spent the night in police custody before being released this morning, their cases closed.

A joint statement released after the show by the French offices of Extinction Rebellion and Youth for Climate and by Les Amis de la Terre, or Amis de la Terre, denounced the environmental and social impacts of the fashion industry and called for the French government to impose an immediate reduction in production levels.

Ms Cohuet – who is a spokesperson for two climate organizations, the French office of Alternatiba and ANV-COP21 – said she got involved in activism five years ago, after studying at Sciences Po, one of the most prestigious universities in France, and worked on the climate. change the problems in Kyrgyzstan. “I realized that we were in a critical situation, and it seemed important to me to put all my energy into the collective mobilization,” she said.

As for her appearance on the podium, Ms Cohuet said she considers it a success. “Our demands are there,” she said. “We hope it will be a spark.”