It's time to put creature comfort back on the catwalk

THE other day I went out for a boozy dinner with my best friend - a brainy, scientific-type person, with the white coat and goggles to prove it (though not, obviously, at dinner). Personally, I'm not so science-inclined; I'm more Balenciaga than bromine, more Gucci than … oh God, I'm bored.

Ms Lab-Coat also adores animals, in spite of the bite she sustained from a drowning gibbon in Thailand (she was trying to save it).

Anyway, I assume it was this affinity for animals that prompted Ms Lab-Coat to bring up animal testing over our bottle of cheap riesling (though 23 years old, we still inhabit a Passion Pop world - affordability over quality). Mystified, and somewhat miffed, at this deviation to a non-sartorial conversation, I said: "Chuh, Coaty, I don't think anyone tests on animals any more. They wouldn't get away with it." For which I was told to stick to what I knew, like boots and finding accessories "witty". Her cruelly, yet accurately made, point being, I believe, that I was mistaken.

So why do I never hear about it? We live in a supposed hyper-aware and ultra-accountable world, in which we are constantly conscious of the inconvenient truths of carbon emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, and global warming. These are, undoubtedly, pertinent issues. But are they the only issues?

I may not know much about bromine, or gibbons, but this still seems familiar to me. This is about trends. One fad ends, another begins; this is the essence of fashion. It is this which drove my generation's parents to dress us in leggings and puffy socks. It made us buy pedal pushers in the '90s in the hope they would turn us into Kylie (unrealistic for those of us who are short of leg). Now it seems this fad attitude has been translated from popular culture into society's approach to political awareness.

Political issues have become brands in themselves. Perfume is no longer enough, it is now: "Angelina Jolie proudly presents refugees and starving children in Sudan", or "George Clooney brings you genocide in Darfur". Even Pete Doherty does his bit for the war on drugs by making any class-A use look wildly unattractive. Just as fashion has become politicised (over fur in the past, and sweatshops and underweight models more recently), so has our political mentality become subject to the transient forces evidenced in fashion and popular culture. As a result, animal testing has been forgotten. But Patsy Stone once said: "Nowadays you get your clothes back from the dry cleaners and it's revival." Revival is an inevitable part of the circle of trend.

Originally published in The Sydney Morning Herald on 7 June 2007.