Influencers Push Urban Outfitters to Make Vegan Switch
Influencers Push Urban Outfitters to Make Vegan Switch
London – Today, social media influencers Angela Martini, Francesca Farago, Megan Lourdes, and Tanaya Henry – who have a combined reach of more than 7 million followers – will confront Urban Outfitters executives at the company’s virtual annual meeting and ask the following question (which appears in full below) on behalf of PETA US: “When will URBN leaders take our generation’s concerns seriously and stop selling cruelly obtained and environmentally destructive animal-derived materials?”
At the same time, supporters in cow, sheep, and goose costumes will raise a ruckus outside the Urban Outfitters store on S 36th Street in Philadelphia, and provocative posters by street artist Praxis are already plastered throughout the city, including near the URBN headquarters. It’s all part of PETA entities’ campaign calling on Urban Outfitters brands to opt for eco-friendly vegan materials and leave alpaca fleece, wool, leather, down, mohair, cashmere, and all other animal-derived materials on their original owners.
Credit: Praxis
“Conscious young shoppers want nothing to do with a brand that tortures and kills sensitive animals for fashion,” says PETA UK Vice President Elisa Allen. “PETA is urging Urban Outfitters to stay true to its progressive values and switch to selling only sustainable vegan materials.”
PETA and its entities have released dozens of videos revealing that workers hit, kick, and mutilate gentle sheep for their wool; leave sensitive goats with bloody, gaping wounds at mohair and cashmere operations; burn, electroshock, beat, and slaughter cows for leather; yank out the feathers of ducks and geese by the fistful for down; and boil silkworms alive to produce silk.
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, Twitter, or Instagram.
Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]
The influencers’ question follows.
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Hi. We are Angela Martini, Francesca Farago, Megan Lourdes, and Tanaya Henry, social media influencers with a combined reach of more than 7 million followers, and we have a question on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals regarding URBN brands’ sale of animal-derived materials.
Our generation makes up 23% of the global population, and our spending power is valued at $600 billion. We and our Gen Z siblings are conscientious consumers. We want fashion that does more than simply look good. We want clothing that we can feel good about wearing, clothing that expresses who we are.
Flaunting the skin of cows who were electroshocked, beaten, and slaughtered or wrapping ourselves in wool from gentle sheep who were punched, kicked, and mutilated would leave us feeling sick in our guts, because it would violate our belief in the importance of protecting animals and the environment.
We and our followers hold companies accountable for the goods they sell. When PETA shared an investigation with URBN revealing that an alpaca supplier to Anthropologie and Free People had been implicated in slamming pregnant alpacas down onto the shearing tables, tying them to medieval-looking restraining devices, and shearing them so roughly that some were left bleeding from their wounds and vomiting in fear, we expected URBN to take action. But you didn’t.
We expect companies to stand by their environmental claims and acknowledge that the same industries that exploit, abuse, and kill animals are polluting our land, air, and water. How many times do you have to hear that animal agriculture is responsible for nearly one-fifth of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions before taking action to reduce your contribution to the climate catastrophe?
Our question is this: When will URBN leaders take our generation’s concerns seriously and stop selling cruelly obtained and environmentally destructive animal-derived materials?