WATCH NOW: ‘Skinned’ PETA Model Crashes The Fashion Awards in London
A PETA supporter turned heads tonight when she crashed The Fashion Awards in London calling on the fashion world to turn its back on animal leather. Dressed in a fashion-forward trench coat made from cactus leather by designer Sarah Regensburger, she stepped onto the red carpet at the Royal Albert Hall and proceeded to take it off. See what happened next:
BREAKING: ‘Skinned’ PETA model crashes The #FashionAwards red carpet in London👀 #LeatherKills #TFA pic.twitter.com/UUOcByZrqm
— PETA UK (@PETAUK) December 4, 2023
The brave supporter revealed realistic flesh, tendons, and muscle painted on her nude body, along with the words “Turn Your Back on Leather” across her back. She held a sign that read, “Leather Kills”.
PETA is urging all designers to embrace the innovative vegan materials that are available today. Vegan leather can be made from pineapple, cork, apple, mushroom, mango, and many other natural, plant-based materials, offering luxurious fabric without any of the cruelty that is inherent in the animal-derived leather industry.
Leather Kills
When cows used for leather are sent to slaughterhouses, workers may cut their throats and dismember and skin them while they’re still conscious, often after they’ve endured castration, tail-docking, and dehorning – without any painkillers – on farms.
Much of the leather used for “luxury” fashion comes from baby cows who were taken from their mothers within hours of birth and may have endured extreme confinement in the veal industry overseas. Exposés by PETA entities of the world’s largest leather processor showed that workers brand calves on the face and beat cows and bulls and shock them with electric prods.
Leather is not a byproduct but a co-product of the multibillion-dollar meat and dairy industries. Many species, whose skin fetches a higher price than their flesh, are raised either solely for their skin or for meat and leather.
Leather Is Toxic
Turning animals’ skin into leather requires 130 different chemicals – including cyanide – and of course, animal agriculture, which includes the leather industry, is one of the leading contributors to the climate catastrophe.
Cow leather has been ranked the most polluting textile in fashion by several industry reports. We’re urging designers to be fashion-forward and embrace a vegan future.
‘Vegetable-Tanned’ Leather Is Just Greenwashing
Greenwashing marketing schemes touting “vegetable-tanned” or “chrome-free” leather don’t address the process that causes the most damage: farming.
Remember, the greatest environmental destruction occurs before the animal skins even arrive at tanneries.
Animal agriculture, which includes the leather industry, is a leading contributor to climate change, causing almost one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. According to luxury fashion conglomerate Kering’s 2016 “Environmental Profit and Loss” report, more than 93% of leather’s environmental impact is caused by land use and greenhouse gas emissions associated with farming.
Leather Is Out, Compassionate Fashion Is In
Any designer still using the skin of tormented cows and calves in their collections is living in the past. And so is anyone still wearing animal skins. Embrace vegan leather, which is kinder to the animals and the planet:
While You’re Here
Please take five minutes to send messages to companies still using leather. Your actions are a matter of life and death for cows and other animals farmed for their skin:
