While fashion designer Victoria Beckham, aka "Posh Spice," has vowed that none of her collections will ever include a stitch of fur, for which we thank and praise her, she has been silent on the subject of whether or not her new handbag collection will contain the skins of crocodiles, snakes, and other reptiles killed for fashion. And with the fashion diva's New York City runway show coming up this weekend, even the New York Daily News called her out for keeping mum on PETA's inquiries.

Alligator:© Dean Perrus/Dreamstime.com, Handle:© Luminis/Dreamstime.com, Zipper:© iStockPhoto.com

In a recent letter to Beckham, PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews described the horrors of the exotic-skins trade as shown in a PETA video narrated by Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix and described how farmed reptiles are beaten over the head before being skinned alive. Snakes are either nailed to trees or poles by their heads or have water forced down their throats to loosen their skin before they, too, are skinned alive.

Beckham has stated that her bags adhere to the guidelines set forth by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), but PETA explained that CITES aims only to prevent a species from going extinct and has nothing to do with the atrocious ways in which animals are confined and killed.

Bags, belts, shoes, and watchbands made from high-fashion pleather abound, so there's never been a better time to give leather and exotic-animal skins the boot. In the meantime, we'll keep doing our best to get Posh to dump the croc.

 

Written by Alisa Mullins

I've got vegan pumpkin pie on the brain, but over at London's Daily Mirror newspaper, humble pie is on the menu today. The newspaper has issued an apology and a retraction over a story that it made up last month alleging that PETA was planning to pour animal blood on Victoria Beckham (aka Posh Spice) because she uses exotic skins in her line of handbags.

Writes the newspaper, "There was never any truth in this story which we retract completely. We apologise to PETA for the harm that our story has caused them. We have agreed to make a donation to PETA and to pay their legal costs."

Now that this little misunderstanding has been cleared up, hopefully Beckham will watch the video that PETA UK sent her showing how alligators are beaten to death with baseball bats and snakes are skinned alive so that their hides can be turned into accessories. I'm sure that if she does, she'll quickly realize that there's nothing "posh" about torturing animals for fashion.

Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post

Spotlightingnews/Creative Commons

A photo snapped by paparazzi of everyone's favorite ex-Spice Girl, Victoria Beckham, buying a copy of Rory Freedman's Skinny Bitch has sparked a massive spike in sales of the diet book that has been described as "a no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous." What interests me in particular about this little piece of gossip is that if Victoria and her fans follow the book's advice, we'll have even more talent batting for the vegan team pretty soon, since Skinny Bitch is a fantastic piece of advocacy for a vegan diet. Here's what Ingrid Newkirk says about the book:

Enjoy the new diet, Victoria. And thank you, Rory—you’re amazing.

You can read more about the story here.

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