PETA Vs. Us Vogue: It Ain’T A Pretty Picture

For Immediate Release:
29 May 2003

Contact:
Dawn Carr 020 7357 9229, ext. 224

New York – PETA has had no luck in its efforts to convince Anna Wintour to keep fur out of American Vogue magazine by showing her hideous images of animals struggling in traps. So the animal rights group is hoping to get her attention with a hideous image of … herself.

Just in time for Wintour’s ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award at the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Fashion Awards on 2 June, PETA is launching a new ad campaign featuring the most unflattering picture of the American Vogue editor the group could find, with the slogan, ‘Fur Is Worn by Beautiful Animals and Ugly People.’

‘We scoured photo agencies for the shot that most accurately reflects Anna’s selfish, cruel nature, and although there were many candidates, this one summed it up best’, said Dan Mathews, PETA’s vice president of campaigns in America.

On the day of the awards, PETA members will hold a lively demonstration outside Vogue’s Condé Nast offices in New York, greeting workers with posters of the ad and giving away postcards listing Wintour’s office phone number and e-mail address and encouraging people to complain to her directly about the fur in Vogue.

Dubbed ‘Nuclear Wintour’ by the media for her frosty reputation, Wintour is fur-bearing animals’ worst enemy, because her magazine continues to feature dozens of pages of pro-fur editorials and advertising each year. Last week, Vogue continued its policy of rejecting paid PETA ads by turning down the group’s newest one, sight unseen. The ad was photographed by Todd Oldham and features model Fernanda Tavares wearing Stella McCartney designs and strutting down a runway with an anti-fur sign.

According to the fur-trade journal Sandy Parker Reports, Wintour is also this year’s recipient of the Maurice Memorial Award, presented annually by the Fur Council of Canada. She is being recognised for ‘her support of the fur industry “at a time when many of her colleagues were bowing to the winds of political expediency” and not showing furs in their publications’.

For each fur garment, animals are trapped, drowned or beaten to death in the wild or gassed, strangled or electrocuted on fur farms. For more information, please visit FurIsDead.com.