Use of Leather to Draw Graphic Black Friday Protest at Detroit Free People Store
For Immediate Release:
November 26, 2025
Contact:
Hannah Nelson 202-483-7382
On the busiest shopping day of the year, holiday crowds will be met with a gruesome sight outside a local Free People store, as PETA supporters will display a life-size “bloody cow’s head” with the message, “Here’s the rest of your leather handbag,” calling out the company’s use of animal- and planet-killing leather. The grisly display is part of PETA’s annual Free the Animals Friday—a nationwide Black Friday initiative that calls attention to the suffering of more than a billion animals slaughtered every year for their skins—to inspire holiday shoppers to choose fashionable and kind vegan options.
“Every leather handbag, jacket, and pair of shoes is the skin taken from a thinking, feeling being who suffered a terrifying and violent death,” says PETA President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Free People to drop animal-derived leather and revel in the compassionate vegan materials it already offers—and urges holiday shoppers to keep cruelty off their gift lists.”
Where: Free People, 1425 Woodward Ave. in Detroit (Between Grand River Avenue and Clifford Street)
When: Friday, November 28, 12 noon
Why: Cows have friends and mourn when a loved one dies or when they’re separated from each other. A PETA exposé of the world’s largest leather processor showed that workers brand calves on the face, beat cows and bulls, and shock them with electric prods. The leather industry also contributes to the climate catastrophe, water contamination, land devastation, deforestation, pollution, and loss of biodiversity.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear or abuse in any other way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kitsfor people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
