Jean Paul Gaultier has slammed the fashion industry for producing "ridiculous" amounts of waste.
Jean Paul Gaultier
The 67-year-old fashion designer has urged brands to stop engaging in a "contest" to see who can make the most clothes, as he believes fashion companies are damaging the planet by producing "far too many collections with far too many clothes".
He said: "Big groups are doing more collections, new collections ... with a big amount of clothes. It's absolutely ridiculous.
"It's not a question of thinking about what people need. It's thinking about being bigger. It's only a question of power and politics."
Gaultier is one of the world's most influential designers and boasts a fashion career spanning more than four decades, but hit out at other designers who produce clothes that are "not to be worn" but are "more like advertising".
Last year, it was reported that Burberry burnt unsold clothes, accessories, and perfume worth £28.6 million, and Gaultier says the practice is "scandalous".
He added: "Some people destroy the clothes, they burn them. It's scandalous."
And to combat the waste in the fashion industry, Gaultier insists his next haute couture show in January "will be all about recycling".
Speaking to BBC News, he said: "Keep your clothes ... and after, we can make something new. I will help you do that."
Gaultier's decision to help the environment comes after he last year made the decision to ban fur from his labels, declaring that the way living creatures are killed for their fur to be "absolutely deplorable".
The designer made his announcement on French television, and Mimi Bekhechi - director of international programmes at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) - insisted that Gaultier's decision is a "sign of changed times".
She said: "This decision is a sign of changed times, as most people no longer wish to wear anything from animals who were cruelly caged, electrocuted, bludgeoned to death or caught in steel traps, left to die slowly and painfully.
"Fur today is as dead as the poor animals it was stolen from, and any designers not clued up enough to see that may as well hang up their sewing needles now."
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