Gucci, Balenciaga, and Isabel Marant Among the Winners of the 2023 PETA Fashion Awards
London – To celebrate the finest, most innovative animal-free fashion, PETA is announcing the winners of its 2023 Fashion Awards, which recognise the industry trailblazers making fashion kinder to animals and the planet.
The award for Best Luxury Moment went to Isabel Marant after the fashion house confirmed a ban on fur, angora, and exotic skins. For its fully vegan coat made of the plant-based leather LUNAFORM, Balenciaga was celebrated with the Best Luxury Product award, and the Best High-Street Fashion Moment came courtesy of French fashion group SMCP for banning down and other feathers. The Trendsetter of the Year award went to Ganni for its work with the plant leather manufacturer Ohoskin and collaboration with Polybion to create a jacket made from bacteria. The Best Movie Moment came when Ryan Gosling wore a pair of vegan boots from Good Guys Don’t Wear Leather in the Barbie movie. Gucci took the Best Vegan Bag prize for its Demetra Horsebit 1955, made from the brand’s proprietary leather alternative and loved by Billie Eilish.
“From luxury designs in vegan leather to fashion houses’ refusal to work with fur and feathers, the cruelty-free fashion revolution is here,” says PETA Vice President of Corporate Projects Yvonne Taylor. “Our Fashion Awards are a celebration of designers and brands making progress for animals – and we hope they inspire other companies to make changes, too.”
Other winners include MoEa, which nabbed the Best Vegan Shoes award for its plant leather sneakers. The Innovation of the Year award went to Bananatex for its banana-derived alternative to polyester. Blue District won Best Vegan Feathers for its eco-friendly bamboo ostrich feathers, and the Best Menswear award went to Christian MacLeod for his leather-free belts. Activist and author Emma Håkansson was honoured with the Essential Reading award for her book Total Ethics Fashion, which advocates for a new fashion system that respects animals, humans, and the planet. Ponda’s vegan material BioPuff – made from bulrush – was crowned Best Vegan Down. On a less positive note, Woolmark was named Villain of the Year for its greenwashing and misleading promotion of wool.
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 exotic skins. Sheep raised for wool are routinely mutilated and abused and are eventually killed, and animals on fur farms 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 deforestation – 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 (formerly Twitter), TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]
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