Breaking: ‘Ostrich’ Violently ‘Plucked’ Outside London Fashion Week NewGen Showcase
21st February 2025
Breaking: ‘Ostrich’ Violently ‘Plucked’ Outside London Fashion Week NewGen Showcase
London – The British Fashion Council’s NewGen Showcase was the site of a gruesome display today, as a terrified PETA ‘ostrich’ had her ‘feathers’ agonisingly torn from her body, leaving her bloodied and traumatised, to show Fashion Week attendees what ostriches and other birds may endure in the cruel feather industry for nothing more than some feather trim on a gown.
Images and video footage are available here and here.
A PETA US investigation into ostrich farms and abattoirs in South Africa exposed workers forcibly restraining young ostriches and striking them in the face on the way to slaughter. At the slaughterhouse, workers forced terrified ostriches into stun boxes – causing many to slip and fall – before slitting their throats. The ostriches next in line watched helplessly as their flock mates were killed right in front of them. Their feathers were then ripped from their bodies. Many birds are routinely live-plucked in areas where farming them is unregulated and even where live-plucking is prohibited, making their already miserable lives even more unbearable and making it impossible to decipher whether feathers have been taken from birds who were dead or alive.
“All ostriches on farms experience the horror of factory farming and a terrifying death, just so humans can decorate clothes with their feathers,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “PETA urges the next generation of designers to keep all birds’ feathers out of their clothes, because the feather industry is just as cruel as the fur industry.”
London Fashion Week banned fur from shows in 2023 and this year became the first of the ‘big four’ fashion weeks to ban wild animals’ skins. PETA is calling on the British Fashion Council to keep up the compassionate trend by banning feathers.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Lucy Watson +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected].
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