Kylie Jenner lion dress at Paris fashion week defended by Schiaparelli after Carrie Johnson criticism
A fashion house says no animals were harmed in the making of a dress featuring an ultra-realistic lion’s head seen on Kylie Jenner’s shoulder and the catwalk at Paris fashion week.
Jenner arrived at Schiaparelli’s couture runway show in Paris wearing a dress from the designer’s collection featuring a fake lion’s head.
The gown, designed by Schiaparelli, prompted accusations of promoting animal cruelty and glamorising trophy hunting – but some animal rights activists came out in support of the collection.
A nearly identical version of the dress was later modelled on the runway by Irina Shayk.
Dresses featuring a faux-taxidermy snow leopard and a wolf modelled by Naomi Campbell were also seen in the show.
Schiaparelli posted a video of Jenner on Instagram, detailing the materials used to make the lion: “Hand sculpted foam, wool and silk faux fur… hand painted to look as life-like as possible.”
The brand added in capital letters: “NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN MAKING THIS LOOK.”
But Carrie Johnson, animal rights campaigner and wife of former prime minister Boris Johnson, described the designs as “grim”, writing on Instagram: “Real or fake this just promotes trophy hunting. Yuck.”
A model wears a snow leopard creation as part of the Schiaparelli Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2023 collection. Pic: AP
‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’
However, animal rights charity PETA – which named Mrs Johnson as its “person of the year” in 2020 – came out in defence of the fake looks.
In a statement, PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk told Sky News: “Kylie’s look celebrates lions’ beauty and may be a statement against trophy hunting, in which lion families are torn apart to satisfy human egotism.
“These fabulously innovative three-dimensional animal heads show that where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
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Kylie Jenner poses for a photo in the fake lion gown. Pic: AP
Despite PETA’s stance, many people expressed their distaste with Schiaparelli’s designs on the brand’s Instagram page.
One commenter wrote: “No matter how you justify it to your models and celebrities – the faux animal couture is a huge problem with implications you don’t understand… Even though NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED the concept promotes wearing animals for fashion and a disgusting out of touch mentality the elite continue to suffer from.”
Another comment, which has received thousands of likes, said: “We have to stop showing animals as luxury
‘products’. They may be made from foam, but these are endangered species that have historically been killed for their pelts to be turned into garments.”
There were those who came to the brand’s defence however, with some saying the designs were art and were purposefully provocative.
One person wrote: “The whole point of haute couture is to be an art performance, a concept, shown on a person. It’s art, and the concept here is Dante’s inferno.”
Paris’s haute couture fashion week runs until Thursday, 26 January. The controversial Schiaparelli show kicked off the event on Tuesday.
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Om Fahad: Iraqi social media influencer shot dead by gunman on motorbike who posed as food delivery rider – report
A well-known Iraqi social media influencer has reportedly been shot dead in her car by a gunman on a motorbike.
Om Fahad, whose real name is Ghufran Sawadi, was killed outside her home in Baghdad’s Zayouna district on Friday, according to the AFP news agency, citing security officials.
It appears the unidentified attacker pretended to be delivering food to the victim, one security source said.
Om Fahad, who has nearly half a million TikTok followers, became famous for posting light-hearted videos where she dances to Iraqi music.
Six days ago, she shared footage of herself driving in a car and also posing in front of a mirror. They have each been watched hundreds of thousands of times.
The influencer was sentenced to six months in prison in February last year for sharing videos that a court ruled contained “indecent speech that undermines modesty and public morality”.
A campaign was launched in 2023 by the Iraqi government to clamp down on social media content which broke the country’s “morals and traditions”.
The interior ministry set up a committee to look for “offensive” clips on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, with several influencers being arrested.
“This type of content is no less dangerous than organised crime,” the ministry declared in a promotional video which asked the public to help by reporting such content.
“It is one of the causes of the destruction of the Iraqi family and society.”
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Speaking last year, interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan argued the morality campaign has “nothing to do with freedom of expression”.
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In 2018, gunmen in Baghdad shot dead Tara Fares, who was a model and influencer.
After years of war and sectarian conflict following the 2003 US invasion that overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq has returned to some semblance of normality despite sporadic violence, political instability and corruption.
But civil liberties, particularly among women and sexual minorities, are still constrained in a conservative and male-dominated society.
R Kelly’s challenge against a 20-year sentence for child sex convictions has been quashed by an appeals court.
The singer was correctly sentenced to 20 years in prison, a Chicago court ruled on Friday.
He was convicted in 2022 on three charges of producing child sexual abuse images and three charges of enticement of minors for sex.
In his appeal, Kelly, 57, argued Illinois’ old statute of limitations – which required prosecution of child sex crime charges within 10 years – should have applied, rather than the current law permitting charges while an accuser is still alive.
The appeals court rejected this, labelling it an attempt by Kelly to elude the charges entirely after “employing a complex scheme to keep victims quiet”.
He also argued that charges involving one accuser should have been tried separately from the charges tied to three other accusers due to video evidence that became a focal point of the Chicago trial.
Prosecutors have said the video showed Kelly abusing a girl. The accuser, only identified as Jane, testified for the first time that she was 14 when the video was taken.
The three-judge panel from the appeals court noted jurors acquitted Kelly on seven of the 13 counts against him “even after viewing those abhorrent tapes”.
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In a written statement, Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean said they plan to seek a US Supreme Court review of the decision and “pursue all of his appellate remedies until we free R Kelly”.
“We are disappointed in the ruling, but our fight is far from over,” she said.
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