After fur, PETA speaks out against wool, leather goods and down jackets

The nonprofit animal rights organization PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - started its war on the fashion system in the 1980s. Through eye-catching images and protests, the non-profit organization attacked the use of fur on the catwalk, illustrating to the mass public the violence suffered by the animals from which the materials to create them were sourced. After more than 40 years, PETA's founder Ingrid Newkirk has officially declared victory against fur, despite the fact that she considers her company's work in the fashion industry still unfinished: the next targets will be wool, leather goods and down, materials derived from animals that in the common consciousness are still not recognized as the result of animal violence. Slaughtering, live-plucking, and mulesing - a surgical practice involving the removal of part of the sheep's skin - are just some of the methods that PETA is working to eliminate for good.

The media campaigns that have made PETA's work world-famous are characterized by a strong sense of irony, catchphrases, and testimonials on the scale of any luxury brand. The shoot «I'd rather go naked,» which has immortalized the nude bodies of prominent personalities such as Pamela Anderson, Christina Applegate, Elisabetta Canalis, and Alicia Silverstone over the course of thirty years, is, due to its effectiveness, a true example for advertising companies to follow, on the same level as the «Lettuce Ladies,» which portrayed Playboy girls in costumes in the shape of lettuce leaves for vegan propaganda. While these campaigns were widely appreciated by the public, others achieved notoriety because they were recognized as too explicit or controversial, such as «Your Mommy Kills Animals,» aimed at children, «Holocaust on Your Plate,» which compared Nazi concentration camps to factory farming, and «He Died for Your Sins,» which instead of depicting Jesus Christ illustrated the image of a pig. «We are working hard to wake people up,» Newkirk explained to BoF. «Fur is now obvious, leather is increasingly so... wool is the hardest.» While there have been a number of brands that have finally adhered to the ban on fur on the catwalk and in ateliers, such as Calvin Klein in the 1990s, and Stella McCartney in 2001 - the brand proclaimed itself fur-free from day one of its launches - Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren in the mid-2000s, and the entire Kering group in 2017, for PETA's founder, the road to completely eliminating animal abuse in fashion is still a long one. «Some companies feel [that] maybe if we do fur, we can hold the bar there,» said Newkirk. « We’re still activists, and the bottom line is: we’re here to change the Industry, and we will change.»

«If we look at where animals suffer the most, food is at the top of the list, but then there is clothing,» said Newkirk. As in the case of fur, convincing fashion brands to stop working with suppliers that use violent practices and animal abuse for leather, wool, and down will take some time, but to date, there are already some brands that have moved towards more ethical technologies: Ganni has declared that it will stop implementing virgin leather; Kering, Prada and Hermès, in the same vein as Stella McCartney, are investigating bio-materials substitutes for animal materials, such as mushroom mycelium, although for now the production of these 'new discoveries' is very difficult and expensive, and sometimes requires a certain amount of plastic.