Hit and Miss: Georgina Rodríguez, Pharrell Williams, and Prince William Named in the 2024 PETA Fashion Awards
19.12.2024
London – To celebrate the biggest victories and greatest innovations in animal-free fashion, PETA is announcing the winners of its 2024 Fashion Awards, which recognise the industry trailblazers making fashion kinder to animals and the planet.
This year, Prince William was honoured with the Red Carpet award for his choice to wear sneakers in innovative banana fibre Bananatex to the Earthshot Prize. On a less positive note, Pharrell Williams was named Villain of the Year for refusing to ban fur and wild-animal skins from his collections as Creative Director for Louis Vuitton menswear, while model and social media personality Georgina Rodríguez was named Worst Dressed for her repeat offenses when it comes to wearing fur and wild-animal skins.
“Innovative vegan fashion is everywhere this year – and many celebrities are catching on and earning praise,” says PETA Vice President of Corporate Projects Yvonne Taylor. “Others simply must do better, and we hope that being called out will inspire a compassionate change.”
The award for Best Luxury Moment went to Marc Jacobs after the fashion house confirmed a ban on wild-animal skins. For its range of vegan boots in collaboration with Collina Strada, UGG was celebrated with the Best Vegan Shoes award, and the Best High-Street Moment came courtesy of H&M for banning newly produced down after a campaign from PETA entities. Copenhagen Fashion Week took the Best Catwalk Moment prize for its decision to ban wild-animal skins and wild feathers from its runways.
Other winners include ECOPEL, which nabbed the Best Vegan Fur award for its plastic-free invention Flur. The Innovation of the Year award went to Fibe for its potato-derived fabric, which could substitute wool and silk. Melina Bucher won the Progress Award for launching a ground-breaking vegan leather atelier, and the Best Vegan Wool award went to Italian company Opera Campi for its collections in eco-friendly hemp. PANGAIA’s bag GAIA, made from plastic-free vegan leather MIRUM, was crowned Best Vegan Bag. After signing PETA’s Feather-Free Pledge, Gymshark won the Best Vegan Puffer Jacket award for its Sherpa Puffer Jacket, which features a recycled filler.
PETA notes that every year, more than 1 billion animals are slaughtered in the global leather industry. Alligators are kept in cramped tanks and crudely bludgeoned to death, while snakes are nailed to trees and cut open for wild-animal skins. Sheep raised for wool are routinely mutilated and abused and are eventually killed spend their entire lives in filthy wire cages before they are killed by gassing, poisoning, or electrocution. Goats are violently sheared for cashmere – which also causes desertification – and birds are commonly live-plucked for down.
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 the group on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]
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