Kourtney Kardashian has addressed the backlash she received from the news that she’d be collaborating with Boohoo as “sustainability ambassador”.
The Poosh founder recently announced her new role with the fast fashion retailer, which will see her releasing two eco-friendly capsule collections that “have been created in tandem with a journey of investigation into opportunities for creating a more sustainable fashion future.”
Shortly after, social media users called out the reality star for representing a brand that has often been cited as one of the UK’s leading fast fashion retailers. Not to mention the Kardashian-Jenner family, specifically Kourtney, has recently been criticised for their excessive water usage during a California drought and frequent private jet flights.
Critics blasted Kardashian’s new partnership as “a joke” and “bulls***”.
“Kourtney Kardashian as Boohoo’s sustainability ambassador. Biggest load of b******s – surely even ultra fast fashion stans don’t buy this utter BS?” one person tweeted.
“Are we being punked?” another user asked. “Adding Kourtney becoming Boohoo’s ‘sustainability ambassador’ to my running list of things that feel dystopian in 2022.”
On 13 September – the day of her Boohoo launch – Kardashian addressed the criticism from her collaboration on Instagram.
“I went back and forth about doing this collection with @boohoo because the first thing I think about when I hear the words ‘fast fashion’ is that it’s bad for our planet,” she began her lengthy Instagram caption.
“Boohoo approached me to be a sustainability ambassador, and though I knew it would get backlash because the two just don’t go hand in hand, I thought about the fact that fast fashion, or the fashion industry in general, isn’t going anywhere,” she continued.
Kardashian said that her reasoning behind partnering with Boohoo was to bring attention “about the impacts of fast fashion on our planet” to people who may otherwise have no idea. She explained that she saw this as an opportunity to push Boohoo into making “some initial changes and then holding them accountable”.
“It’s definitely making some noise which is exactly what I was hoping for,” Kardashian wrote, adding that she feels “proud” to make her Boohoo capsule collection with “intention and purpose”.
“I invite any experts who have ideas, suggestions (I have already seen some of you and will absolutely be reaching out to talk and learn more) to reach out. I want to help and from my experience so far working with the team I work with at Boohoo, they do too,” she concluded. “I will be elaborating on their changes, how we’ve made this line more sustainable, and what I’ve learned we as consumers can do to help… all to come!!”
Founded in the UK in 2006, Boohoo quickly became one of the world’s least sustainable fashion companies. The brand was named alongside Missguided as two of the least sustainable fashion brands in the UK in a 2019 report published by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC).
