Fashion Icon Vivienne Westwood Gets Her Toes Wet in Vegetarian Campaign
In honor of World Water Day, Vivienne Westwood has forgone fashion in favor of her birthday suit in a new video about the meat industry’s depletion of world water supplies. “I am an eco-warrior, but I take long showers with a clean conscience because I’m vegetarian,” says Westwood as she bathes in the video.
An impassioned environmentalist, Vivienne reveals that the meat trade squanders global water supplies by diverting rivers and depleting our scarce natural resources. She explains that it takes 16 pounds of grain—and all the water and land that goes with it—to produce just 1 pound of meat. And backing up Vivienne’s crusade to save our planet is a recent European study―cited in a New York Times piece titled “Meat Makes the Planet Thirsty“―reporting that it takes 4 million gallons of water to produce 1 ton of beef but only 85,000 gallons to produce 1 ton of vegetables. The United Nations has also chimed in by calling for a global move toward a meat- and dairy-free diet. Says Vivienne, “By avoiding meat, you do more for the environment than recycling or driving a hybrid car combined.”
Although Vivienne can shower guilt-free (after all, 1 pound of meat requires as much water as six months of showers), she actually prefers not to. She divulges in our exclusive interview below, “Normally at home, I’m not used to the habit of a shower. I just wash my bits and rush out in the morning. I more often than not get in the bath after Andreas.” Check out the behind-the scenes footage below:
Vivienne’s interview highlights the urgency in the crisis we face. She says, “I do believe we are an endangered species, and we actually need to think what we’re doing, not just that it’s a choice, we can take it or leave it. Otherwise it will be mass extinction in a few generations. It won’t be the animals.” Luckily, going vegetarian can help us avert these dangers while sparing animals immense suffering on factory farms and in slaughterhouses and improving our health.
