The Everglades are crawling with pythons: This fashion designer couldn’t be happier

No one knows for sure, but there are believed to be tens of thousands of Burmese pythons in the Everglades, and possible many more. It is known that the invasive species, which has no real predator, is decimating the native wildlife, the number of some animals has decreased by 99 percent.

For that reason, the State of Florida pays handsomely to have people go out into the swamps to eradicate the serpents that can grow to be 23-feet long. One of the people that goes out to help cull the snakes has found a way to make sure that, even though they are a scourge on the ecosystem, their lives were not in vain.

Making sure nothing goes to waste while helping save the Everglades

Elle Barbeito, a Miami-born multidisciplinary artist and designer, learned from her father, Mark Yon, not to let anything go to waste. About eight years ago she joined him on a hunt for Burmese pythons, after which he asked her if she could do something with the python skins he had been collecting.

Yon had started storing the skins so as not to “have Mother Earth pissed off at me for not honoring this snake’s life and using every single part of it,” she shared with Dazed. Barbeito explained to National Geographic that he doesn’t hunt and kill them because he loves doing it, “he just loves the Everglades.”

As a python-removal agent, he and his longtime friend Brian Hargrove, also a python hunter, have captured in excess of 12,000 snakes for the state. So, she had a fair amount of material to learn with, which the former design assistant for Yeezy did by watching YouTube videos, researching and hands-on practice.

The now 29-year-old has made a name for herself and has a cult following for the python-skin apparel and accessories that she makes. Using this invasive species gets around a lot of the ethical issues involved in using animal-based products for clothing as culling the pythons is helping to conserve the Everglades.

“Here is a beautiful material that’s sustainable, and nobody was really doing anything with it. It became this solution to a problem,” Barbeito told National Geographic. “It’s a way to honor them and I see that as a privilege,” she added.

She does all the work herself, going out with her father and Hargrove to capture the snakes which they euthanize afterwards, and then skinning the snakes and curing the skins in her backyard.

One of the reasons she left New York was her disillusionment with the wastefulness of the fashion industry. So, with her own products she tries to make sure that there is little to no waste. She never tosses extra scraps telling Dazed, “I keep all of them. I want to be as intentional as possible – I don’t want to keep adding to a problem.”

She also doesn’t keep an inventory and her wares, which can cost between $425 and $1,200, typically sell out within 24 hours of being listed on her social media platforms. Her clientele come from all over the country and her products are now helping raise awareness of the Everglades.

“When I first started, I just saw it as this material I was able to utilize. But it’s also a form of being able to educate people,” she explained to National Geographic.

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