Iconic American designer Nicole Miller has launched her Pre-Fall 2021 collection, which is partly inspired by an early 2020 visit to Northern Thailand’s ancient jungle where rescued Asian elephants roam in their natural habitat at Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort.
The collection features elephant and jungle-inspired patterns and motifs on dresses, leisure wear and accessories. A percentage of online sales during the month of August will be donated toward the upkeep of the rescued elephants that reside at Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort and to projects dedicated to improving the welfare of elephants throughout Thailand.
Whilst staying at Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort at the confluence of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar, the fashion designer and style icon was introduced to a herd of gentle giants that call the luxury resort home. The resort is world famous for its elephant camp that, along with the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF), were set up in 2003 primarily to help elephants being used for street entertainment (begging) and wild elephants in need of help. More than 20 elephants live in the jungle environment of the resort along with their entire mahout (carer) families. Here the Foundation has introduced experiences designed to allow the elephant caretakers to raise the funds they need to look after their elephants without forcing them into activities they might not enjoy. Nicole participated in the Walking With Giants signature experience, which provides an optimum way of getting to know the elephants and developing a deeper emotional connection with them. She also spent time observing Thailand’s majestic elephants in their natural habitat from the deck of Anantara’s unique, transparent “Jungle Bubble” rooms.
All funds raised in August from Nicole Miller’s Pre-Fall 2021 collection will go toward resources to support Thailand’s traditional elephant owning and wild elephant communities. The almost total disappearance of tourism throughout the country due to COVID-19 continues to have a negative effect on Thailand’s 3,800 odd captive elephants and their carers, who still need approximately $20 USD per day just to feed their elephant, let alone their own family, and meet all their other needs. Elephants consume between six and ten percent of their bodyweight daily and it costs approximately $18,000 USD per year to look after a single elephant. To compound matters, the COVID-19 crisis has reportedly forced at least 85 elephant camps in Northern Thailand to close; as a result Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort and the Foundation have expanded their work to meet the COVID-19 challenge.
Since the start of the national lockdown in Thailand, Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort and the Foundation have taken in three additional elephants and their carers. The COVID-19 elephant refugees, whose camps were unable to care for them and would ultimately have left them unfriended and unfed, are now matched with friendship groups and, of course, have their own diet plan. The adoptees – Boon Rod, Kam Mool and Thong Inn – sometimes even join the Foundation’s popular daily livestreams, where people worldwide can view the gentle giants as they take their daily walk out to the resort’s grasslands or forest and enjoy a river bath or mud playtime.
For more information or to donate, sponsor a rescued elephant, or book a private livestream that stars the rescued elephants live from their natural habitat in Northern Thailand’s ancient jungle, visit https://www.helpingelephants.org/
