Shrimps Founder Hannah Weiland Calls on PM to Drop Queen’s Guard Bearskins
Shrimps Founder Hannah Weiland Calls on PM to Drop Queen’s Guard Bearskins
Faux Fur Designer Joins PETA Push for Vegan Caps
London – Celebrated for her luxe faux fur designs, Shrimps founder Hannah Weiland has joined PETA in calling for the bearskins used for the Queen’s Guard’s caps to be replaced with the modern, high-performing fabric created by faux furrier ECOPEL. In a letter sent to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the designer notes that her company has worked with ECOPEL’s “high quality, durable faux furs for many years” and appeals to him to adopt the animal-free upgrade.
“As a fashion designer and animal lover who specialises in working with faux fur, I am deeply troubled by the UK’s continued use of bears’ skins to make the ornamental Queen’s Guard’s caps, when an indistinguishable, cruelty-free faux fur fabric has been tried and tested and is ready to be rolled out,” she writes.
The faux bear fur, Weiland explains, matches the exact length of the real bear fur and is 100% waterproof, as confirmed by the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) accredited laboratory. PETA notes that the ministry has failed to take up ECOPEL’s offer of unlimited faux bear fur free of charge until 2030 – a move that could save over £1 million of taxpayer money.
“Fur farming has been banned in the UK for more than 20 years, and much of the British public, including – ironically – the guards’ charge, Her Majesty the Queen, refuse to buy animal fur,” Weiland continues. “Please instruct the MoD to move with the times and ensure that, going forward, all new caps are made only from cruelty-free faux fur. It’s what the British public wants and what bears need”.
PETA notes that it takes the skin of at least one bear to make a single cap. Some bears are shot several times before they die, and some escape only to bleed to death. When mother bears are killed, their cubs are left to starve. Despite the MoD’s claims that bears are killed as part of Canadian government “culls”, PETA has found no evidence that any culls of this sort exist in any province or territory of Canada.
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 7837 6327; [email protected]
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