Victory! Vince Scraps Mohair After Push From PETA

For Immediate Release:
November 18, 2022

Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382

Upscale retail company Vince has confirmed to PETA that it will no longer source mohair, following a series of meetings with the group. PETA shared information and undercover video footage showing rampant abuse in the industry—petrified, crying angora goats are roughly handled, shorn, maimed, and left bleeding from deep wounds—and is now sending vegan chocolates to the company in thanks for its decision.

“Vince is embracing a kind future for fashion by dropping the cruel angora industry, which leaves gentle goats bloodied and crudely stitched back up,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is celebrating this compassionate move and encourages every shopper to leave mohair items, all of which are products of cruelty, on the rack.”

A PETA Asia undercover investigation in South Africa, the world’s top mohair producer, showed workers dragging, throwing, mutilating, and even cutting the throats of fully conscious goats, many of whom cried out in pain. Shearers, who are paid by volume, not by the hour, cut broad swaths of skin off some animals and crudely stitched up the most gaping wounds on the filthy shearing floor, without providing any pain relief.

Vince joins Diane von Furstenberg, Brooks Brothers, Gap, Banana Republic, Topshop, UNIQLO, Overstock.com, Zara, and many other top retailers that have banned mohair, and PETA is calling on H&M and others to follow suit.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—offers a guide to vegan clothing shopping on its website. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.