Purses Really Do Grow on Trees: PETA Billboard With Caylee Cowan Showcases Plant Leather

For Immediate Release:
August 18, 2025

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Vegan fashion is everywhere in 2025, thanks to Gen Z megastars like Bella Ramsay and Billie Eilish—and now, actor and influencer Caylee Cowan is embodying the move toward innovative, sustainable fashion in a new PETA campaign highlighting the magic of leathers made from apples and other plants.

“Once upon a time, people believed that leather had to be made out of animals,” she says in a new PETA video. “That to have handbags, shoes, and belts, we had to kill gentle cows, clear the forests, poison the water. Then they discovered that leather could be made out of plants… sounds like magic, but it’s real.”

The new sky-high appeal, now up en route to the Beverly Hills shopping scene, encourages everyone to “redefine leather.”

Cows have friends, hold grudges against other cows, and mourn when a loved one dies or when they’re separated from each other. Yet cows killed for leather may be skinned and dismembered while still conscious—after they’ve endured castration (for males), branding, and tail docking, often without painkillers. In addition to the horrific cruelty that the leather industry inflicts on animals, it’s a major contributor to climate change, land devastation, deforestation, water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Sustainable vegan leathers are just as durable and fashionable without the cruelty or environmental destruction of leather.

PETA’s billboard is located on Beverly Boulevard, between Harper and North Sweetzer avenues, in Los Angeles.

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.