PETA Calls Out Hermès’ Wild-Animal Skin Sales at Shareholder Meeting

For Immediate Release:
April 29, 2025

Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382

“When will Hermès ban wild-animal skins and embrace ethical luxury by launching vegan Birkin and Kelly bags?” That’s the question that PETA— which owns stock in the company—will be asking Executive Chair Axel Dumas to address at the company’s annual meeting on Wednesday. The action follows PETA’s new DIY YouTube video that’s drawn over 1 million views across all platforms and shows a fashion vlogger teaching their audience how to make a “Hermès Birkin bag” from scratch, starting with a live, three-year-old crocodile.

“Numerous designer brands are ditching deadly and destructive wild-animal skins, but Hermès is still hanging on to the same old cruelty,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Hermès to use only luxurious vegan materials, which don’t involve the torture and killing of thinking, feeling beings.”

Crocodiles are doting parents. Mother crocodiles hear their babies chirping while still in their eggs and will help them work their way out. They will also gently carry their babies in their mouths to protect them. Yet three crocodiles are killed to make just one Hermès Birkin bag. Undercover investigations—including a video from the Australian association Kindness Project, filmed in intensive breeding farms belonging to Hermès—revealed crocodiles crowded in cramped enclosures then isolated in small, filthy cages before being dragged, mutilated, and stabbed with a screwdriver. PETA entities have also documented how workers in the fashion industry chop off conscious lizards’ heads with machetes, inflate snakes with water, and electrically stun ostriches before slitting their throats in full view of their terrified flockmates.

PETA notes that many other major designers—such as Chanel, Balenciaga, Burberry, Mulberry, Victoria Beckham, Diane von Furstenberg, and Vivienne Westwood—have banned the use of the skin of reptiles or other wildlife from their collections.

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

The full text of PETA’s shareholder question follows.

My name is James Fraser, and I have a question for Executive Chair Axel Dumas on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

An investigation into Australian farms owned by Hermès and its suppliers shows that crocodiles are being confined to cramped cages or small concrete pens filled with filthy water before being electrocuted, dragged, and mutilated with blades and screwdrivers—some while still conscious. On farms in South Africa supplying Hermès with ostrich skins, the young birds spend their short lives on barren feedlots. In a slaughterhouse, workers force ostriches into stun boxes—causing many to slip and fall in the process—and then slit their throats. In response to the investigation, Hermès continues to mislead the public and shareholders by referencing CITES—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora—knowing full well that this regulation relates to the number of animals traded, not the horrific way they are reared and killed.

Monsieur Dumas, the sale of macabre accessories made from the body parts of wild animals is tarnishing our company’s reputation and alienating the conscious consumers who represent the future of luxury fashion. When will Hermès ban wild-animal skins and embrace ethical luxury by launching vegan Birkin and Kelly bags?