Pharrell Face-Off: PETA Confronts Designer Over Animal-Skin Collections at Biopic’s London Premiere
20 October 2024
Pharrell Face-Off: PETA Confronts Designer Over Animal-Skin Collections at Biopic’s London Premiere
London – Today at the London premiere of Pharrell Williams’ LEGO-animated biopic, Piece by Piece, at the Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank , PETA supporters dropped a massive banner from the balcony section proclaiming, “Pharrell: Stop Supporting Killing Animals for Fashion,” just as the Louis Vuitton men’s creative director stepped on stage. They caused a ruckus from above the crowd as they loudly appealed to him to end his disgraceful use of wild-animal skins and fur.
Video footage is available here.
“While Pharrell’s life story is told in this navel-gazing film, animals are confined in filth on farms before their heads are bashed in and their skin is ripped off while they’re still conscious – all so pieces of their bodies can be made into Louis Vuitton’s fleeting fashion pieces,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “PETA is calling on Pharrell to use his power for good, stop being complicit in cruelty, and push Louis Vuitton into the 21st century by refusing to use wild-animal skins and fur.”
A PETA Asia investigation into slaughterhouses in Indonesia that supply Louis Vuitton’s parent company, LVMH, shows snakes being bashed with hammers, inflated with water, and cut with razors while they were likely still conscious. PETA entities have also documented how workers in the fashion industry hack at crocodiles’ necks and shove metal rods down their spines, chop off conscious lizards’ heads with machetes, and electrically stun ostriches before slitting their throats in full view of their terrified flockmates. Animals raised and killed for fur are confined to cramped, filthy cages before they’re electrocuted, bludgeoned, gassed, or even skinned alive.
PETA US recently released a new video parodying Pharrell’s song “Happy” –which features a building-brick version of Pharrell wearing a blood-stained shirt –and points out that tormenting and killing animals for fleeting fashion pieces “isn’t beautiful – it’s abuse”. In September, a PETA US supporter also confronted Pharrell at the Toronto International Film Festival and pleaded with the star to stop using animals’ skin and fur in his designs. Pharrell told the animal ally, “You’re right,” and claimed that he’s “working on it” – but dropping these cruelly derived materials is something he could do in a heartbeat, and so far, nothing has changed at LVMH. Last year, Pharrell even unveiled a new bright-yellow crocodile-skin bag priced at $1 million.
PETA notes that many other major designers – including Mulberry, Victoria Beckham, Chanel, Burberry, Diane von Furstenberg, and Vivienne Westwood – have banned using the skins of reptiles or other wildlife and nearly all top luxury fashion houses have banned the use of fur.
PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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