Urban Outfitters, Inc., to Face Pressure From PETA at Annual Meeting

Protesters Will Also Be Outside Stores to Push the Company to Stop Selling Wool, Leather, Alpaca, and Other Animal-Derived Materials

For Immediate Release:
June 7, 2021

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

“When will URBN honor the values of its consumers by ending the sale of animal-derived materials?” That’s the question a representative of PETA, which owns stock in it, will ask Urban Outfitters, Inc. (URBN—the parent company of Urban Outfitters, Free People, and Anthropologie), at its virtual annual meeting tomorrow. Later that day, PETA supporters wearing cow, goat, alpaca, and sheep masks will shoot blood-red smoke into the sky outside the Urban Outfitters store near the University of Pennsylvania to blast it for selling products that are designed to appeal to open-minded and progressive young people but are contrary to URBN’s stated goals of being sustainable and ethical.

When:    Tuesday, June 8, 12 noon (protest)

Where:    110 S. 36^th St. (at the intersection with Sansom Street), Philadelphia

“Just as CVS made the ethical decision not to sell cigarettes, Urban Outfitters can end the sale of animal-derived materials and reap the benefits of being seen as a truly eco-minded, forward-thinking retailer,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “The vegan fashion revolution has arrived, and PETA advises the company to shift away from animal fibers or risk being left behind.”

PETA and its affiliates have released dozens of videos revealing that workers hit, kick, and mutilate gentle sheep for their wool; leave sensitive goats with bloody, gaping wounds at mohair and cashmere operations; burn, electroshock, beat, and slaughter cows for leather; yank out the feathers of ducks and geese by the fistful for down; and boil silkworms alive to produce silk.

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.