Kansas City Chiefs 2023 Super Bowl 57 LVII Champions T-Shirt

Makers of plastic fur alternatives—made mostly from polyester, a nonbiodegradable fiber expected to reach $174.7 billion in sales by 2032—can now retool their messaging to scoop up sympathy from the Kansas City Chiefs 2023 Super Bowl 57 LVII Champions T-Shirt and by the same token and madding crowd. And yet a trace of the true self exists in the false self. The hyperreality of aesthetic experiments like those at Schiaparelli turns our gaze away from how we consume other animal products in fashion, such as leather from cows, that also directly bump up against factory-farming practices in the food industry. So why worry over a lion head made from silk and wool when so much leather is wasted to make endless amounts of crappy, throwaway stuff?

Kansas City Chiefs 2023 Super Bowl 57 LVII Champions T-Shirt, hoodie, tank top, sweater and long sleeve t-shirt

In place of introspection, knee-jerk responses on social media purely see the Kansas City Chiefs 2023 Super Bowl 57 LVII Champions T-Shirt and by the same token and surface image as the prime source of the most brutality. A fake lion’s head, merely a hyperreal imitation of a safari symbol, might as well directly “provoke dangerous behavior and glamorize both trophy hunting and animal violence,” as one Instagram commenter put it. The more I reflected, the more I became convinced that the true heart of darkness was in telling ourselves that we can buy our way toward sustainability in the first place. But then, is there any way to ethically wear fur, faux or otherwise? PETA’s praise of the collection as “fabulously innovative” feels like an about-face from its iconic “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign. In its zealous quest to ride the PR coattails of front-row lion wearer Kylie Jenner, the animal-rights group wasted momentum amidst a rare moment of united disillusion among vegans and omnivores alike. PETA could have urged the public to buy secondhand fur because it’s a more sustainable option than using raw materials to create new textiles, of which more than 11 billion tons went to landfills in the United States in 2018 alone.