Wear silk to help endangered species

Fabric Frontline and the WWF have teamed up to protect the tiger Keystone

One of Switzerland's most famous producers of silk ties and scarves has teamed up with the World Wildlife Fund in a bid to protect some of the world's most endangered species.

Fabric Frontline has designed a tie and a scarf imprinted with a tiger and has promised the WWF a percentage of the sales.

Fabric Frontline has been one of Switzerland’s most famous luxury brands for the past 20 years. It was set up by Andi Stutz and his two sisters and is now a byword for elegance and style.

It produces the silk used in Zurich Opera House productions and its products are worn by Swissair flight attendants.

Fabric Frontline’s alliance with the WWF may seem an unlikely match, but the head of the WWF, Doctor Carol Franklin, disagrees.

“Animals and plants are something we have in common,” she says. “Andi Stutz puts them on his ties and scarves and we try to protect them from extinction.”

A Fabric Frontline tie costs SFr140 ($78) and a scarf is SFr290. Five per cent of the tiger print sales will be donated to the WWF.

The partnership will also help the WWF to reach people who are not normally aware of or sympathetic to environmental issues.

“This is a very exciting collaboration because you’re not only buying a beautiful scarf or tie but helping an endangered species,” says Franklin.

The tiger is one of many animals threatened with extinction and has been carefully chosen as the campaign’s first subject.

“The tiger is the symbol of beauty and elegance which is why it’s on the point of extinction,” says Franklin. “In Russia, it is threatened by forest clearance, in India it is poisoned because it attacks cattle, and the Chinese use tiger bones in traditional medicine.”

Fabric Frontline expects to bring out one or two new designs every year. Future designs are expected to feature turtles, elephants and dolphins.

by Michael Hollingdale