lululemon’s Sales of Goose Down Face PETA Challenge

Executives at Annual Meeting to Be Confronted With Questions Over Company’s Sale of Feathers Ripped Out of Live Birds’ Bodies

For Immediate Release:
June 10, 2014

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Since 2011, PETA has been meeting with representatives of athletic apparel company lululemon and showing them graphic video footage of how geese used for down production are tightly restrained as workers painfully tear the feathers out of the birds’ skin, but lululemon continues to sell down-filled jackets. That’s why PETA will attend the company’s annual meeting in Vancouver on Wednesday and ask executives to stop selling down:

Where:   Shangri-La Hotel, 1128 W. Georgia St., Vancouver, British Columbia

When:    Wednesday, June 11, noon

“Customers are horrified to discover that a ‘down’ label means that geese had their feathers painfully ripped out of their skin,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on lululemon to stop dragging its feet, stop selling down, and agree never to sell it again.”

As PETA’s video exposé of down reveals, workers typically lift the birds by their necks or delicate wings, pin the animals between their knees, and rip the feathers out of the struggling birds’ skin. They’re often plucked so hard that their skin is torn open, and the hurried workers sew up the wounds with a needle and thread—and without painkillers. Buying down can also support the cruelty of the foie gras industry, as producers often boost their profits by selling the feathers of the ducks and geese who are force-fed by having tubes rammed down their throats until their livers become diseased and swell to up to 10 times their normal size.

Modern, high-tech synthetics are widely available. They also are warm, cozy, and allergen-free; don’t collect the dust and mold that down does; and, unlike down, still insulate when wet.

PETA’s full question for lululemon is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.