Altuzarra Bans Exotic Skins After PETA Push
For Immediate Release:
October 19, 2021
Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382
A box of alligator-shaped vegan chocolates is on the way from PETA to Altuzarra, which confirmed that it has banned exotic skins. The announcement comes after PETA sent the luxury brand exposés documenting cruelty to animals in the exotic-skins trade—and research showing that the industry poses a risk for future epidemics.
“By ditching ostrich leather and python purses, Altuzarra is saving animals’ lives and protecting public health,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is celebrating this compassionate move, which will help steer the fashion industry toward a cruelty-free future.”
PETA entities have exposed cruelty to animals in the exotic-skins trade around the world. A PETA Asia exposé showed workers in Vietnam inflating snakes with compressed air, causing them to suffocate to death, and electroshocking, stabbing, inflating, and evidently skinning crocodiles alive. In Texas, PETA exposed that workers crudely hacked into alligators’ necks and scrambled their brains with metal rods, and in South Africa, PETA exposed that workers stunned ostriches, flipped them upside down, and slit their throats.
Experts warn that these unsanitary and crowded conditions are the perfect breeding grounds for viruses such as the one that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, which is believed to have originated in a live-animal market similar to the farms from which exotic skins come.
Altuzarra joins a growing list of top designers and retailers—including Calvin Klein, Chanel, Diane von Furstenberg, HUGO BOSS, Karl Lagerfeld, Victoria Beckham, and Vivienne Westwood—that have banned the sale of exotic skins. PETA is calling on Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Prada, and other brands to follow suit.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
