Big News! Copenhagen Fashion Week Bans Fur
Update (26 March 2024):
The future of fashion is vegan – and Copenhagen Fashion Week is leading the way! The high-profile fashion event is banning exotic skins and feathers.
Skål to Copenhagen Fashion Week for raising the bar for other events. This move is a logical evolution of the show’s ban on fur, introduced in 2022. It reflects what every stylish consumer has come to realise: compassion is always in fashion. Ethical and environmentally friendly vegan materials are the future – and the future is now.
Exotic skins and feathers are obtained through abhorrent cruelty. Snakes are pumped with air or water while they’re still alive, and lizards are crudely decapitated. Workers ram metal rods down crocodiles’ spines and into alligators’ brains in an attempt to kill them and slit the throats of inquisitive baby ostriches when they’re just a year old.
PETA’s first-ever exposé of the ostrich-slaughter industry showed the world that young ostriches are kept in barren dirt feedlots until they’re transported to abattoirs. There, the birds – at only a year old – are turned upside down in a stunner before their throats are slit and their feathers are plucked out to create the bumpy-textured, or “goose bump”, skin used for Birkin bags.
Now, all eyes are on other fashion week organisers – who must follow suit and immediately implement public policies against these unnecessary, unfashionable, and unethical materials.
Original blog (8 August 2022):
PETA and compassionate fashionistas everywhere are celebrating the news that Copenhagen Fashion Week will go fur-free. This move follows a consumer awakening brought about by PETA supporters internationally, who piled on the pressure, pointing out that Danish “high-welfare” fur is a cruel and unsustainable scam.
PETA has been campaigning for the fur ban for years. We have sent letters to the event organisers, its sponsors, and its partner agency on sustainability. In 2021, on the event’s opening day, together with Anima International and Danish animal rights association Dyrenes Alliance, PETA held an eye-catching protest highlighting that fur is the product of death and doesn’t belong on catwalks.
Fur Is Dead
Minks are confined for their whole lives to cramped cages before they’re killed for their fur.
Investigations into 26 mink farms in Denmark revealed sick, injured, and dead animals in every instance. Some minks suffered from massive, untreated bite wounds. Others were missing legs or ears from fights, which inevitably break out when these naturally solitary animals are forced to live together in crowded conditions.
Cases of COVID-19 were found on mink farms in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, prompting the latter to bring forward its planned ban on fur farming.
Niels Vogensen
The Fur Industry Is Killing Our Planet
Fur is treated with chemicals such as formaldehyde and chromium to prevent it from rotting, making it one of the least sustainable materials in fashion. An independent study found that, compared to other materials, fur has a higher environmental impact on 17 out of 18 factors tested, including its contribution to the climate catastrophe and toxic emissions.
Now Let’s Get Fur Farming Banned in Denmark!
Today, fur is as dead as the animals it was stolen from, and designers around the globe are embracing sustainable, innovative vegan fabrics. Copenhagen Fashion Week now joins the fashion weeks of Amsterdam, Helsinki, Oslo, and others as well as brands like Gucci, Versace, Prada, Valentino, Armani, Chanel, and just about every other major fashion brand that has already banned animal fur.
Despite this timely move by the Danish fashion industry, Denmark remains the world’s largest mink-fur producer. Use your voice to put the last nail into the coffin of its fur industry. Send the Danish prime minister a message:
