It’s About F**king Time! Stella McCartney is PETA’s 2024 Person of the Year

28.11.2024

London — She has been named Designer of the Year by Glamour, Elle, the British Style Awards and others, she’s a cultural icon and first daughter of rock ‘n’ roll, and now visionary animal-friendly designer Stella McCartney can add another faux feather to her cap: PETA’s 2024 Person of the Year, an accolade she won after telling other designers it is “about f**king time” to drop leather and feathers.

Free from fur, leather, and feathers since day one, Stella McCartney is the go-to brand for luxurious, sustainable vegan pieces—and the designer’s long history of killer looks without killing continues with the recent launch of her Winter 2024 campaign, “It’s About F**king Time to End Leather.”

McCartney wore a custom shirt with the sassy slogan “It’s About F**king Time” during her father Paul McCartney’s inauguration into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, and in 2024 she repurposed the phrase to call on the fashion industry to end its use of deeply cruel and environmentally destructive animal leather. She kicked off the campaign with flair during New York Fashion Week, enlisting PETA supporters and actor Caylee Cowan to pose nude in the window of her flagship store alongside signs proclaiming, “No Leather Ever!”

Recently, McCartney also joined PETA in launching the Feather-Free Pledge, calling on designers and retailers to never work with feathers.

“PETA and my parents collaborated to shape what animal rights are today, which is why I feel so honoured and privileged to be named Person of the Year,” says McCartney. “I have felt connected and committed to this courageous, rebellious, kick-ass movement since I was very young, from our joint video calling to ban fur farms in the UK in 1998 to our feather-free pledge for the fashion industry in 2024. I feel so proud to have a team around me who also see the importance in raising awareness not only for animal rights, but human rights and our planet as well. I look forward to continuing our mission with PETA — giving a voice to the voiceless and, I hope, ending animal suffering once and for all.”

“Stella McCartney’s rallying cry for cows and birds is just her latest wonderful action in a long career spent creating fabulous designs free of leather, feathers, and fur,” says PETA Founder  Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is delighted to recognise her as our 2024 Person of the Year and urges brands still stealing what belongs on animals’ backs to take a page out of her lookbook and embrace creative, animal-friendly materials.”

PETA points out that cows develop friendships over time and sometimes hold grudges against other cows who treat them badly; loyal geese partner for life and are protective of their families; hatchling alligators generally stay together in a “pod” for up to three years; and water-loving minks can swim to depths of 50 feet underwater on just one breath. Yet they are tormented for their  , feathers, and fur, enduring mutilations, extreme confinement, and violent killing methods including strangulation, electrocution, neck-breaking, and throat-slitting.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.

Contact:

Sascha Camilli +44 207-923-6244; [email protected]

 

#