Focus: PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

It's a Fur-real issue that innocent animals are being skinned daily for fur to be made into high fashion accessories. PETA's campaign Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur has made great impacts on designers around the globe.

Kim Basinger is an Academy Award-winning actor and animal advocate who she sent a letter to leading Chinese designer Luo Zheng reminding her that there's nothing fashionable about using the skins of dead animals in her designs.


Kim writes:
As you may know, this is an issue that is very dear to my heart. I have avoided wearing real fur for many years ….
PETA's heartrending investigations have documented that animals, including dogs and cats, are bludgeoned, hanged, bled to death, strangled with wire nooses, and skinned alive. Workers have been caught beating raccoons, dogs and foxes with metal rods and leaving them to convulse on the ground. Some animals are injured but still completely conscious as they are skinned, and they kick and writhe as their skin is ripped from their bodies.


Already, high fashion designers such as Vivienne Westwood and Stella McCartney have refused to use fur in their designs after joining the PETA team. Hopefully many more designers join the ranks of their fellow artists and one day make the fashion world a fur-free and animal safe industry.