Environmental preemption: ‘No Shahtoosh in Toosh Collection shawls’

Designer says shawls are called Shahtoosh but did not have the Chiru antelope’s down hair.

LAHORE:

As many as 20 activists from the Concerned Citizens against Animal Cruelty on Saturday marched from Gulberg 6-L adjacent to Veranda Bistro to Nida Azwer’s retail outlet on MM Alam Road protesting Azwer’s collection of Shahtoosh shawls. The designer later recanted her statement about using Shahtoosh in the shawls.

Azwer had previously advertised the, “Toosh Collection”- a collection of 30 Shahtoosh shawls- as a mixture of Pashmina and Shahtoosh.

“Each Shahtoosh shawl is made from the down hair of three Tibetan antelopes (Chiru),” Dr Mahjabeen Ali Habib, one of the protesters.

The protesters held up placards in front of Azwer’s outlet saying Stop Selling Shahtoosh Shawls, Stop Animal Cruelty, Say No to Shahtoosh Shawls.

Asma Ezdi, another protester, said the sale of products using Shahtoosh should not be promoted as it threatens the already endangered Tibetan Chiru antelope.

She said the authorities must discourage such fashion trends so that people could understand the importance of conservation.

Azwer, in response to the protest, tweeted that the shawls she was selling were locally called Shahtoosh but did not have contain the Chiru antelope’s down hair. This has also been clarified by us in a letter to the WWF, she tweeted. She also tweeted, “We would most certainly never purchase, let alone retail, anything remotely endangered or that which promotes/condones cruelty to animals”. Muhammad Abubakar, one of the protesters, said these shawls were being sold for Rs150,000 to Rs500,000...the price is just too high for a shawl made of just wool and Pashmina.

Sadaf Ali Habib, another protestor, said, “If the designer hasn’t used Shahtoosh in her shawls then she shouldn’t advertise the product as such...that is falsification of facts.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2014.