*Editor's note: HSUS and the Fur Free Alliance are in open dialogue with Prada, and we should have an update soon. Please stay tuned.
As Fashion Week begins in New York City today, the iconic fashion brand Burberry has announced that it will stop using fur in its products and phase out existing fur items. This announcement follows nearly a decade of engagement with the Humane Society of the United States, as well as recent fur-free announcements from Gucci, Versace, Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, Donna Karan, Armani, Hugo Boss and many others.
Meanwhile, more than 40 animal protection organizations from around the world have come together to launch a campaign urging Prada, one of the fashion industry’s most high-profile holdouts on fur, to go fur-free.
In what may be the largest corporate fur-free campaign of all time, the Fur Free Alliance, which includes animal protection organizations in more than 30 countries, including the HSUS and Humane Society International, is asking its millions of supporters worldwide to contact Prada and ask them to go fur free. Prada has long supported the fur trade, selling fur from skinned foxes, raccoon dogs, mink, rabbits and even pre-born or fetal lambs (known as broadtail, astrakhan, karakul, Persian lamb or swakara). Prada’s current range includes items made of fox and mink fur.
Fur simply isn’t fashionable anymore, and a number of designers are moving rapidly toward fur-free, responding to growing awareness about the cruelty inherent in the production of fur, and consumer demand. A number of Prada’s top competitors have embraced fur-free fashion in recent years.
Companies like Burberry and all the others going fur-free realize there’s an opportunity to capitalize on consumers’ growing interest and commitment concerning animal welfare, and that going fur-free is part of a fashion company’s looking toward the future. Consumers simply do not want to support companies that profit from the suffering of animals. In fact, before online luxury fashion retailer, YOOX Net-a-Porter, went fur-free last year, it polled more than 25,000 of its top customers – including those who spent over a million dollars on its sites – and a majority said they wanted the company to go fur-free.
Cities like San Francisco, West Hollywood and Berkeley have already banned fur sales and countries like Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and India are banning fur production and imports. In the United Kingdom, HSI is leading the charge to ban fur sales in that country, and here in the United States, Los Angeles is close to doing the same.
There is absolutely no good argument for keeping the fur industry alive, especially when we know that it contributes to the suffering of more than 130 million animals each year. Around the world, in countries such as the United States, France, Poland and China, wild species are kept in small, barren battery cages for their entire lives before being killed by gassing or electrocution. Animals caught in the wild for their fur are taken in steel-jaw leghold traps that keep them in pain for days or even weeks before trappers return to kill them. These cruel and indiscriminate devices also threaten other wildlife and family pets.
Please call Prada today at 1-866-960-8757, let them know that you do not support this cruelty, and urge them to go fur-free.