PETA Hits LVMH and Hermès With Anti–Exotic Skins Actions on Day of Annual Meetings

As a Shareholder, the Group Stages Disruptions to Call For an End to Cruelly Obtained Skins

For Immediate Release:
April 20, 2023

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Although many major designers have dropped exotic skins from their lines, LVMH and Hermès are still selling these cruelly produced materials. As the two fashion houses held their annual meetings in Paris today, PETA—a shareholder in both companies—targeted the events to call for an end to their support of this bloody trade.

At LVMH, a PETA representative attempted to call on CEO Bernard Arnault to end exotic-skin sales, but, excluded from the meeting space, she instead protested outside the meeting room as a bloody “snake,” loudly informing shareholders about how snakes and other reptiles are tortured so that their skins can end up as luxury accessories. Outside, activists held a “dead snake” and a sign where passersby could read, “LVMH: Ban Exotic Skins.”

Photos of the action targeting LVMH are available here.

PETA’s question—submitted to LVMH ahead of the meeting—ended with this: “Mr. Arnault, in your last report on social and environmental responsibility, you stated that ‘success is only worthwhile if it is virtuous,’ but there is nothing virtuous about systemic cruelty and the exploitation of animals for the manufacturing of your bags. When will LVMH act on its promise to ‘forge a new alliance between LVMH and nature’ by removing fur and exotic skins from its future collections?”

At the same time, a PETA representative also attended the Hermès meeting, carrying an apple leather briefcase to emphasize the availability of luxurious ethical and eco-friendly materials. A photo of the PETA representative calling on CEO Axel Dumas to ban exotic-skin sales is available here.

A PETA Asia investigation into Indonesian slaughterhouses that supply LVMH shows snakes being inflated with water, beaten with hammers, and cut with razors while they were likely still conscious. An investigation by the Kindness Project, filmed on farms owned by Hermès, revealed crocodiles being kept in cramped, barren enclosures and cages and then mutilated and stabbed with a screwdriver.

The full texts of PETA’s questions to LVMH and Hermès are available upon request. PETA notes that it takes three crocodiles to make just one Hermès bag and that designers such as Mulberry, Victoria Beckham, Chanel, Stella McCartney, Burberry, and many others don’t use exotic skins.

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, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.