Social media users have pointed out the stunning irony of Kourtney Kardashian Barker being the first-ever "sustainability ambassador" of fast-fashion e-tailer Boohoo – declaring that it "has to be a joke".
The collaboration will see the reality star and Poosh founder chat with "sustainability experts to better understand challenges and opportunities in the fashion industry", and release two capsule collections, the first of which will be unveiled at New York Fashion Week.
For the unfamiliar, Boohoo was founded in Manchester in 2006 and is known as one of the pioneers of the "ultra-fast-fashion" retail phenomenon, geared toward the Instagram and TikTok generation. A 2020 investigation by British newspaper The Sunday Times revealed that not only was the e-tailer's output unsustainable; workers at a factory in Leicester that supplied their product were being paid as little as $4.40 ($4.90) an hour (the national living wage in Britain for ages 25 and above, at the time, was $10.93).
"When Boohoo first approached me to collaborate on a line, I was concerned about the effects of the fast-fashion industry on our planet," Kardashian Barker said in a statement alongside today's announcement.
"Boohoo responded with excitement and a desire to incorporate sustainable practices into our line. It's been an enlightening experience speaking directly with industry experts. I'm grateful for the opportunity to use my platform to drive conversations that lead to ongoing change and use my voice to share actionable tips with consumers on how we can play our own part."
Co-founder and executive director of the Boohoo Group, Carol Kane, described the "extraordinary collaboration" as "the culmination of months of work by our teams".
"Together, we've produced an amazing collection that reflects both Kourtney's unique style and her passion to improve the sustainability of the fashion sector," she said.
"We know that like Kourtney, our customers are keen to improve their knowledge in order to help them make more informed buying decisions, so I'm particularly proud of the social series that we've created and grateful to all of the experts who kindly gave up their time to share their knowledge with Kourtney."
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from @rex_woodbury’s “The Seven Deadly Sins of Consumer Technology” pic.twitter.com/svMAOaE4Ea
The reaction on social media, however, was far from thrilled – met with everything from derision to outrage.
"We have reached peak fashion greenwashing. Private-jetting @kourtneykardash has been announced as the 'sustainability ambassador' for fossil fuel fast fashion brand @boohoo," fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna wrote in a post on Instagram.
"Kardashian Barker – who was publicly outed for overusing water in a drought – is to host a series of interviews with 'sustainability experts to discuss the 'challenges' and 'opportunities' that the fashion industry faces.
"There was the 'opportunity' for this celebrity worth $65 million ($72m) to turn down this contract and instead give a platform to what truly sustainable and ethical fashion looks like (spoiler alert: not boohoo)."
Comments on the retailer's Instagram announcement – and subsequent posts spruiking Kardashian Barker's line – echoed a similar sentiment.
"Positive change would be to stop overproducing poor quality clothes made by underpaid workers. Step one. Don't need more awareness, the world is aware," wrote one.
"Kardashian and sustainability? That has to be a joke!!" commented another, with a third questioning, "How is anything about this SUSTAINABLE?!!!"
"Yes let's keep it real. Have you tried making less stuff?" said a fourth.
"Instead of paying rich people to virtue signal why not just pay super fair wages instead??? That's something you can do and you don't even have to give a rich person more money to do it."
Or, as this user simply wrote, "Lol, no."
Sustainability ambassador at Boohoo. *screams manically into void* pic.twitter.com/ebLh9m0sLf
— Lauren Alexis Fisher (@LaurenAlexis) September 6, 2022
Kardashian Barker noted in the announcement that "there's still lots of work to be done and improvements to be made".
"I truly believe that any progress we can make when it comes to sustainability is a step in the right direction and will open up the conversation for future advancements," she added, of an industry that, in the US, sees up to 11.3 million tons of textile waste each year (equating to around 2150 pieces of clothing each second).
It's natural to wonder, though, whether Kardashian Barker – who last month was publicly outed by The Los Angeles Times for overusing water during southern California's worst drought on record – is the right person to "open up" that conversation.
The 43-year-old has – more than once – been branded a "wasteful, selfish climate criminal", a moniker that's extended to her bevy of famous sisters.
Earlier this year, days before temperatures in the UK soared to their hottest ever on record and a wildfire threatened to destroy swathes of California's Yosemite National Park, Kylie Jenner posted a photo of her and Travis Scott standing in front of two private jets, captioned: "Wanna take mine or yours?"
Or when, overnight, Kim Kardashian was asked for her "thoughts" on global warming in the story accompanying her Interviewmagazine cover, and whether she feels like she's doing "anything to combat and prevent that".
"I believe in climate change, and I believe that anything can help. But I also believe in being realistic and I think sometimes there's so much to worry about on this planet, and it can be really scary to live your life with anxiety," she responded.
A private-jetting Kardashian worth $65 million is now "sustainability ambassador" for fossil fuel fashion brand boohoo, where she'll chat "with sustainability experts to better understand challenges and opportunities in the fashion industry." We absolutely KANNOT. pic.twitter.com/cmI8zwB3ui
— Venetia La Manna (@venetialamanna) September 6, 2022
"I have super climate change-involved friends, and I love learning from them. I do what I can, but you have to pick and choose what really works for you in your life."
But, the business mogul added, "no one's going to be 100 per cent perfect".
While that might be true for the rest of us, surely there's a bit more that Kardashian – one of the world's richest women – could be doing to combat the climate crisis.
For now, perhaps La Manna put it best, ending her post with: "We absolutely kannot."
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