Harvey Nichols Needs to Stop Pretending the Fur It Sells Comes From Animals Who Were ‘Treated Well’
Trading Standards has advised the department store to stop misleading customers with claims that can’t be backed up.
When a customer at Harvey Nichols asked a staff member about the origins of some of the fur-trimmed products she could see on sale, she got an answer she didn’t expect. The retail staff told her that all the fur comes from animals who have been “treated well” and who were killed for meat.
Having seen footage and videos from fur farms around the world – and knowing that minks and foxes are rarely eaten – the customer knew this couldn’t be right. So she decided to file an official complaint with UK Trading Standards about the false information the store was giving to customers.
In response, Trading Standards advised Harvey Nichols that it must never make similar claims again, that there are “limitations on the company’s ability to verify [animal] welfare”, and that it should take steps to improve the “training of staff specific to this area”.
This is just one example of how the fur industry attempts to dupe consumers into believing that its products are “ethical”.
In reality, fur farms usually look something like this:
The animals imprisoned on them are kept inside small, barren cages and driven insane by the confinement. Then they’re killed and skinned. Whether this occurs in Europe – in so-called “Origin Assured” countries – or elsewhere, it can obviously never be considered ethical.
And because of the cocktail of chemicals needed to stop dead animals’ skins from decomposing, along with the destructive impact of factory farming, fur products have a hugely negative effect on the environment, too.
Harvey Nichols should be deeply ashamed about profiting from this cruel, violent industry, especially when fellow department stores House of Fraser, Selfridges, and Liberty are all fur-free.
Please, don’t be fooled by the fur industry’s lies. Never buy fur, and send a message to Harvey Nichols asking the store to reinstate its fur-free policy.
