Director Dave Meyers Joins with PETA for Satirical DIY (Dismember It Yourself) Birkin Bag Tutorial

For Immediate Release:
April 24, 2025

Contact:
Allyson Spellman 202-483-7382

Legendary music video director Dave Meyers has directed music videos for Kendrick Lamar, Missy Elliott, Ariana Grande, and Harry Styles, among many others—but now, he’s the creative force behind…a DIY YouTube video? In a new PETA video directed by Meyers that’s gaining traction online, a fashion vlogger teaches their audience how to make a “Hermès Birkin bag” from scratch, starting with a live, three-year-old crocodile.

The video—created in collaboration with The Community ad agency—shows the content creator assembling all the tools needed for the job: some glue, a ruler, a tarp for the floor, a knife, and a screwdriver, before getting to work. “You’re going to grab your long screwdriver, and it takes a bit of strength, but just plunge it into the brain and shove it down the spine,” the vlogger says, as blood splatters everywhere. “We’re going to peel this bad boy like a banana. It’s going to look so classy!”

“No one would want to be caught dead with a Birkin if they had to make one themselves by hacking apart a thinking, feeling being,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges fashion lovers everywhere to bag the skins and stick to luxurious vegan accessories that no one had to be butchered for.”

In nature, baby alligators “chirp” from inside their eggs to signal their mother that it’s time to hatch, while crocodiles form strong social bonds and can live to 80 years old. PETA’s undercover investigation into farms that supplied reptile skins to Hermès-owned tanneries revealed crocodiles crammed into filthy concrete pits and alligators packed into fetid pools, where they languished for months before being violently slaughtered. Workers were documented cutting into young alligators’ necks—while they were still conscious—and ramming metal rods down their spines or into their brains to kill them.

A growing number of top designers—including Chanel, Stella McCartney, Victoria Beckham, Burberry, HUGO BOSS, and Vivienne Westwood—have banned the skins of tormented wildlife from their collections. PETA is calling on Hermès to follow suit.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kitsfor people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.