Tommy Hilfiger Sheds Fur

For Immediate Release:
March 13, 2007

Contact:
Karen Chisholm 020 7357 9229 ext 229
Yvonne  Taylor 07736 778 914

Following Personal Meetings and Months of Discussions, Top Fashion Company Declares All Real Fur Will Be Replaced With Faux
 
New York – This week, following months of discussions with PETA, Tommy Hilfiger joins Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Kenneth Cole in banning fur from his collections. “Starting immediately, the company will cease development of any product containing fur, and any fur garment already in production will be phased out of sales channels by the delivery of the spring 2008 collection,” Tommy Hilfiger Corp. announced in a statement.

“Tommy’s anti-fur policy will spare countless animals from becoming fashion victims,” says PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews, who has had ongoing discussions with Hilfiger since last summer.

Fred Gehring, CEO of Tommy Hilfiger Corp., told fashion trade publication Women’s Wear Daily that to “guarantee our products live up to the integrity we promise our customers, we have decided to switch to a faux fur policy entirely.”

Stella McCartney, Marc Bouwer, Betsey Johnson, Vivienne Westwood, Comme des Garçons, Limited Brands, J.Crew, Ann Taylor, and Jones Apparel Group are among the numerous other designers and fashion companies that have fur-free policies. What’s more, following two meetings with PETA, Italian fashion leader Prada featured no real fur in its autumn/winter collection for the first time in years. This marks a complete turnaround from last year’s collection, which was heavy on fox and other pelts.

On European and American fur farms, animals spend their entire lives confined to tiny, filthy cages, where they suffer physical and psychological distress before they are killed by poisoning, gassing, anal electrocution, or neck-breaking. China—where not a single law protects animals—is now the world’s leading producer of fur, producing more than all other countries combined. Cats and dogs on fur farms in China are crammed into wire cages, slammed on the ground, and skinned alive for their fur, which is often deliberately mislabeled as fur from other species.

For more information, please visit FurIsDead.com.