Theory, Lacoste, and Others Ban Mohair After PETA Exposé

First-Ever Eyewitness Investigation of Mohair Industry Shows Workers Slowly Killing, Mutilating Crying Goats

For Immediate Release:
December 5, 2018

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Following a PETA video exposé of the mohair industry in South Africa—the source of more than half the world’s mohair—Lacoste and Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., have banned mohair across their brands.

Lacoste, which previously banned fur and angora, operates 1,200 stores in 120 countries. Fast Retailing is one of the largest global apparel retailers, with brands that include Theory, Helmut Lang, and J Brand. Two of the company’s other brands, UNIQLO and GU, banned mohair earlier this year.

PETA’s eyewitness exposé revealed that shearers—who are paid by volume, not by the hour—worked quickly and carelessly, leaving angora goats with gaping wounds. Workers then roughly stitched them up without giving the animals any pain relief. Unwanted goats died in agonizing ways: One worker slowly cut their throats with a dull knife while they were fully conscious and then broke their necks, hacking one animal’s head right off. At a slaughterhouse, others were electrically shocked, hung upside down, and slashed across the throat.

“PETA’s exposé pulled back the curtain on a violent industry that leaves baby goats screaming in pain and fear on the shearing floor,” says PETA Senior Director of Corporate Affairs Anne Brainard. “Fast Retailing and Lacoste have joined the growing list of retailers that refuse to support the abuse of goats for mohair sweaters, scarves, and blankets.”

After PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—released its exposé, South Africa’s National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals filed cruelty-to-animals charges against four angora goat farmers.

Other brands that have banned mohair include Diane von Furstenberg, Brooks Brothers, Gap, Banana Republic, H&M, Topshop, Overstock.com, and Zara, among hundreds of others.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.