For Immediate Release:
April 21, 2021
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
New York – During Kering’s annual meeting on Thursday, Gillian Anderson will call on the fashion house to ban fur on behalf of PETA, which has been a shareholder since 2020. The actor has also sent a letter on behalf of PETA to Kering CEO François-Henri Pinault, urging the fashion titan to enact a company-wide policy banning fur. Last month, Kering confirmed that Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen are officially fur-free, leaving Saint Laurent and Brioni as the company’s only holdouts.
“Fur production requires toxic chemicals to keep pelts from decomposing, and fur farms are breeding grounds for disease,” writes Anderson. “It’s illogical to keep this dwindling, dangerous trade afloat for the sake of the few remaining unscrupulous designers who haven’t yet broken their fur habit.”
In her letter, Anderson—who starred in PETA’s “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign and narrated a video exposé of fur farms—notes that the use of toxins to keep pelts from decomposing impedes Kering’s sustainability mission and that fur farms have spread COVID-19 among workers and wild animals. Multiple countries have reported mutations of the novel coronavirus that originated on fur farms.
As PETA exposés show, many animals killed for their fur spend their entire lives in cramped cages, where they frantically pace back and forth, gnaw on the cage bars, and even resort to self-mutilation. They’re often killed by gassing, electrocution, drowning, or poisoning, and some are even skinned alive. Hundreds of top designers and retailers have dropped fur, including Burberry, Prada, Chanel, Gucci, Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Versace, and Saks Fifth Avenue.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
