Update 12/22/2008: Donna Karan has announced that her fall 2009 lines will be fur-free and that she has "no plans" to use fur in the future! Read more.

I'm not quite sure what Sag Harbor Village, New York—a self-proclaimed "spiritually oriented" town—is thinking by welcoming Donna Karan into their peace circle. But they have, and they are allowing her to set up shop near the wharf. So amongst the yoga shops and raw-food eateries, there will soon be Urban Zen, DK's yoga-inspired store, which plans to sell DK's fashions, amongst other things. Catch the details here.

The nagging question on deck is: Why would someone so relentless in the promotion of fur and the killing of innocent animals for their skins have any interest in associating herself with yoga and its quintessential beliefs? One just doesn't seem to go with the other. Yoga is, after all, a spiritual awakening and a practice of love and nonviolence. (Forgive me for getting all "hippie" on you, but it is.)

Somehow, I just don't think the practice of yoga will cleanse the karma of a desperate, bunny-butchering fashion designer who continues to use real fur in her collections when there are so many great alternatives out there. There's no violence in yoga, DK. And there definitely isn't any peace for animals who are skinned alive and anally electrocuted for your clothes. However, we do have a suggestion for you to turn your bad karma good: Stop killing animals! I know, you've never heard that before, right?

—Jen

Posted by Jennifer Cierlitsky, Membership Correspondence Coordinator

Earlier this week, a group calling itself the "Paint Panthers" e-mailed my friend Michael McGraw, who works out of PETA’s New York office, to inform him that they had visited Donna Karan's home in The Hamptons and done a little "redecorating," stenciling "Donna Karan: Bunny Butcher" and painting a rabbit on the pavement with the message, "I don't want to be a handbag." The handwriting leaves a little to be desired, but the message is fairly plain.

Donna Karan, who was visited at home in February by an animal activist who walked into her living room and cued up a DVD of fur farm footage, is under fire for her refusal to remove fur from her collections. You can write to her about this lapse in judgment here.

We’ve been trying to get designer Donna Karan to watch some footage of exactly what happens to the animals killed for her fur coats for a long time now—and yesterday, a brave PETA member who was up in New York for fashion week made sure that happened, with a little help from some soy lattes: Dressed to the nines and carrying a tray of coffees, she marched up to Donna Karan’s apartment and was welcomed inside without any questions, and offered a seat in the living room. When Donna Karan returned home, my friend pulled out the mini DVD player she had in her bag and cued up the fur farm footage, prompting the following exchange:

…and so on, until Donna decided enough was enough and escorted my friend out of the house. Pissed off as she was, hopefully this has at least planted the seed in her head that it’s time to stop supporting the horrific abuses of the fur industry. But if that doesn’t work, we’ve got a few more tricks up our sleeve:

The New York Post featured this story on their front page today. You can read their coverage here.