LVMH, Gucci Exposed: Snakes Beaten With Hammers, Live Lizards Beheaded for Skins

For Immediate Release:
December 20, 2021

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

A new PETA Asia investigation into two Indonesian slaughterhouses that supply LVMH reveals that snakes were beaten with hammers, sliced open with razorblades, and likely skinned alive—and at one of the slaughterhouses that supplies Gucci, workers bashed lizards in the head with machetes and hacked at their necks up to 14 times before they were decapitated.

The investigation revealed workers at facilities that supply LVMH—which owns Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Celine—striking pythons repeatedly on the head then suspending them in the air and forcing hoses down their throats to inflate them with water, making it easier to remove their skin. Workers disemboweled the snakes while they were likely still conscious. Workers at a slaughterhouse that supplies Gucci—which is owned by Kering—plunged conscious and struggling lizards into buckets of water before beheading them. Because of their unique physiology, lizards do not die instantaneously after being decapitated and their brains can remain conscious and fully able to feel pain for over 30 minutes. The video shows two instances in which lizards’ heads continued moving after decapitation.

Despite these atrocities, LVMH and Kering continue to make false claims about the welfare of the animals killed for their products.

“LVMH and Gucci are on the wrong side of history as long as they sell items made from animals who were beaten, sliced open, and hacked apart while still likely clinging to life,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on these companies to stop profiting from pythons and lizards’ misery and end exotic-skin sales.”

Photos from the investigation are available here. PETA’s letter to LVMH is available here, and its letter to Kering is available here.

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.