COPENHAGEN — The French embassy in Denmark has awarded its Human Rights Prize to Eva Kruse, founder and chief executive officer of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit and former head of Copenhagen Fashion Week, for her work on sustainability in fashion and on promoting better working conditions in garment factories.
Kruse launched the Copenhagen Summit on sustainability in fashion on the margins of the United Nations’ “COP 15” climate change conference in 2009. Since then the biannual conferences have brought together fashion executives, humanitarian organizations, policy-makers and others to discuss ways to mobilize the international fashion industry to become more fair and environmentally sustainable.
In an early-morning reception at the French embassy during Copenhagen Fashion Week, Ambassador François Zimeray joked that the night had been short for many after an evening of fashion parties.
He pointed out that while the joy and frivolity of the fashion industry may seem opposed to the seriousness of human rights issues, both fields dealt with individual dignity and freedom of expressions.
“Wearing fashion says, ‘I am a person, I am an individual and I want to dialogue with the world,’” Zimeray said. “Fashion has to do with the dignity of the person, so it cannot work against the dignity of people [who work in the
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