Breaking: Edinburgh Native Crashes Burberry Catwalk at London Fashion Week

17.09.2024

Edinburgh – Yesterday, during Burberry’s fashion show at the National Theatre, PETA activist Jennifer White from Edinburgh stormed the runway to urge consumers to reject leather. Wearing a dress reading, “Animals Aren’t Fabric” and carrying a sign saying, “F*ck Leather!” White sought to send the message that it’s time for Burberry – and all designers – to stop profiting from animal abuse. A video of the action is available here.

“Every leather bag or jacket came from the body of an animal who felt pain and terror and didn’t want to be carved up for a fashion statement,” says White. “My message to Burberry – and any brand still using cruelly obtained materials – is that animals are not ours to wear and the future of fashion is vegan.”

A PETA exposé of the global leather trade revealed that animals were transported for weeks without adequate food, water, or rest and confined in filthy conditions. Weakened animals were hoisted up by the legs and dragged off ships with cranes. Cows’ throats were often slit with dull knives while they were fully conscious, leaving them to bleed out slowly, terrified and in agony.

The event was the third time PETA supporters have disrupted a Burberry fashion show, and in July, the group also stormed the company’s annual meeting to call attention to the rampant cruelty in the cashmere industry.

White is available for interviews. PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.

Contact:

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

#