INTERVIEW
Marc Beaugé was Philippe Vandel's guest on Europe 1 on Culture Media. The editor has returned to his magazine, L'Etiquette , a bi-annual that deals with men's fashion. Fashion is a considerable business, it is even the first French industry to armament, the automobile or aviation. The Kering Group, for example, which includes Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Puma, Balenciaga and Boucheron, has a turnover of more than 13.7 billion euros. For LVMH (Louis Vuitton, Moët Henessy), the turnover climbs to 48.83 billion euros, more than 11 billion more than the annual budget of the army in France (37.7 billion).
"What is the right garment? The one that will last us long and please us"
The other side of the coin is that fashion is the second most polluting sector in the world, in the presence of international flights and ocean freight, for example. In 2015, greenhouse gas emissions from textile production totaled 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2. "Consume clothes, whether vintage or new, is polluting," recognizes Marc Beaugé.
But he explains: "The message that we carry is the equivalent of eating well.We advocate the right to get dressed.What is the right garment? The one that will last for a long time, the one that will hold, the one who will please us and dissuade us from buying coins that we will throw ". "Sometimes it's vintage, sometimes it's new and well done that respects the environment, the manufacturing and the people who make it," he says.
According to the NGO Greenpeace, the production of a single cotton t-shirt requires on average 1,700 liters of water, the volume that a person drinks in 900 days. For jeans, it's even worse: 7,000 to 10,000 liters of water. But the textile industry produces every year ... more than 2 billion jeans!
An ideal wardrobe rich in clothes ...
"I take advantage of this anecdote to tell environmental associations to be careful when they make t-shirts! When we see Greenpeace t-shirts or even brands with inscriptions 'save the planet', we have to find another way to communicate because t-shirts pollute the planet ", notes Marc Beaugé, a bit sarcastic.
However, if you want to limit your environmental impact, may not follow the advice of L'Etiquette advocating an "ideal" wardrobe consisting of thirty t-shirts, twenty shirts, two jeans and a dozen other pants, twenty sweaters and sweatshirts, three or four suits and a tuxedo, five to ten jackets, coats and raincoats, pajamas, knee-highs in Scotland, a dozen pairs of shoes to which must be added scarves, belts, hats and other accessories ...