Style Companion

Sustainable Chic: Saving the Planet, One Underpaid Seamstress at a Time

by Thea Elle | August 12, 2025 | Style Guide

Step into the shimmering world of LVMH’s eco-conscious elegance, where sustainability is a runway accessory and every press release glows like a Paris storefront. The group’s LIFE 360 program promises to halve direct emissions by 2026 and cut supply chain emissions per product by more than half by 2030. The reports are printed with the same care as a DIOR gown, coloured in soft pastels of carbon neutrality, textured with organic cotton, and with recycled commitments. Every garment tells a story. Some speak of artisanal craft and biodiversity conservation. Others are traced to Italian workshops where prosecutors found sixteen-hour shifts, workers sleeping on site, and safety devices deliberately disabled. Still others pass through Eastern European and Asian factories where wages are low, contracts are often ignored, and the workers remain invisible in marketing materials. It is a delicate balance. The planet must look fabulous. The threads must be green. The people sewing them are optional in the picture.

Sustainability, as long as you don’t ask what’s behind the closed doors.

The Sustainability Showroom

 LVMH presents its LIFE 360 program as a new vision of luxury. The plan is a four-part strategy with goals for eco-design, biodiversity protection, a circular economy, and climate action. The commitments are ambitious. Cut direct emissions by half by 2026. Reduce supply chain emissions per product by 55% by 2030. The brochures are works of art. Models wear gowns described as sustainable. Leather goods gleam under the words “responsible sourcing”. There are pages of photographs showing rivers and forests. The emissions data is there too, tucked between lifestyle images like a polite afterthought.

Most of LVMH’s climate impact comes from Scope 3 emissions. That includes farms that grow cotton, tanneries that process hides, and factories that cut and sew garments. This is the part of the supply chain that is hardest to monitor and slowest to change. Independent climate trackers note that the entire fashion sector is far from meeting the deep reductions needed in this category. The result is a perfect showroom illusion. The climate is invited in for the photo shoot. The supply chain is asked to wait outside.

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Behind the Seam

LVMH garments often begin life far from the boutiques where they end up. In Italy, prosecutors placed DIOR and LORO PIANA units under court administration after finding workers sewing luxury goods in unsafe conditions. Shifts ran up to sixteen hours. Safety devices were disabled to save time. Some workers slept in the same buildings where they worked. In Eastern Europe, Romanian workers making haute couture pieces for Italian houses have reported going unpaid for months.  In Asia, investigations into Indian embroidery suppliers have documented low wages, informal contracts, and no path to complain without risking the job.

The margins are as striking as the designs. The Wall Street Journal reported that a DIOR handbag could cost around fifty-seven dollars to make. It then sells for hundreds or even thousands. The price tags rise. The pay packets for the people who cut, stitch, and finish them do not. The marketing calls it artisanal heritage. The court records and wage slips tell a different story. In the language of luxury, these are not labour abuses. They are vintage conditions.


Limited Edition Ethics

Ethics in luxury are like capsule collections. They are seasonal. They are available only in select markets. They are promoted heavily at launch and fade quietly when the next line arrives. LVMH’s public disclosures on forced labour rank among the lowest in the fashion industry, according to the KnowTheChain benchmark. The scoring reflects limited supply chain transparency and weak evidence of worker remediation. The company publishes supplier standards, but independent audits show these rules often stop at the first tier. Beyond that point, production flows into a web of subcontractors that is rarely mapped or disclosed.

For the consumer, this opacity is part of the mystique. A luxury house like PRADA will name the artisan who hand-finished a bag. It will not name the worker in a small workshop who sewed the lining at three in the morning. The signature stitching is public. The stitcher is not. These ethics are not meant to last forever. Like any limited run, they are produced for maximum impact at minimum cost. When the spotlight moves on, the collection is quietly retired, and the factory floor returns to its regular schedule.

Because nothing says climate action like planting one tree for every thousand handbags sold.

Because nothing says climate action like planting one tree for every thousand handbags sold.

Luxury’s Green Mirage: Where the Marketing Shines and the Factory Floor Stays in the Dark

The contradiction is not unique to LVMH. Across the luxury sector, sustainability is a marketing pillar and an operational afterthought. The same supply chain dynamics that drive fast fashion, tight deadlines, cost pressure, and opaque subcontracting, operate at the high end, only with higher margins and glossier branding. The garments are slower to change seasons, but the underlying incentives remain the same.

This gap between image and reality survives because it is profitable. The brand story travels to the consumer, wrapped in soft lighting and careful language. The working conditions stay put, hidden from view, unphotographed and unbranded. The press release celebrates a new biodiversity project. The court docket records another case of wage theft.


KnowTheChain ranks brands on forced labor risks. Spoiler: runway lights are brighter than their supply chain ethics.

The Final Fitting

Luxury fashion thrives on illusion. The lighting is perfect. The fabrics are rare. The price tags are proof of status. Behind this, the carbon cuts are partial, the supply chain is patchy, and the worker protections are thin. The image is curated down to the last thread. The reality is cut from rougher cloth. LVMH has the resources to transform its supply chain. It could ensure that every garment, from runway gown to small leather goods, is made in conditions that match the elegance of its marketing. It could cut emissions at the source instead of in the brochure. The choice is clear. The decision, so far, is not.

In the meantime, the brand will keep selling sustainability as the new luxury. The stores will glow. The ads will gleam. And somewhere, far from the storefront, a needle will keep moving, stitching another season’s promises into place.

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