Stefania Ferrario, 29 Feet Tall: Model Bares All in Wool-Free PETA Plea
For Immediate Release:
November 3, 2021
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
To encourage shoppers to cross wool off their fall shopping lists, PETA has hit the Garment District with a cheeky larger-than-life message from Australian model and body-positive activist Stefania Ferrario: “Ewe Can Do Better! Wear Vegan.”
Ferrario—who is the face of Dita Von Teese’s lingerie line in Australia and has modeled for numerous other top brands, both there and in Italy—has a clause in her agency contract stating that she won’t wear any animal-derived materials in advertisements. And in a video for PETA Australia, she explains why sheep shearing should turn anyone off of wool: “The workers are being paid for the volume of wool they’re producing, so when they’re shearing the sheep, they’re going really fast,” she says. “The sheep can end up having horrific gashes, bleeding, and then they’ll sew the sheep up without any anesthetic.”
Since 2014, PETA has released 14 exposés documenting cruelty to sheep at 117 wool operations on four continents. The most recent wool-industry exposé—of the wool industry in Australia, which produces 88% of the world’s supply for apparel—reveals that workers stood on a sheep’s neck, punched sheep in the face, kicked them, cut off swaths of their flesh, and left many with bleeding wounds. Data from the Higg Materials Sustainability Index show that because of the greenhouse-gas emissions created during its production, wool has a far greater impact on the climate crisis than its vegan counterparts.
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 or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
PETA’s billboard is located at 298 W. 40th St., at the intersection with Eighth Avenue.
