Can Zendaya and J.Lo ‘Reawaken Fashion’ at the Met Gala? PETA’s Here to Help!

For Immediate Release:
April 18, 2024

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Will 2024 be the year that attendees of the Met Gala finally understand the assignment? It will, if PETA has anything to say about it! Ahead of the May 6 event, the group sent a letter today to this year’s co-chairs—Anna Wintour, Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, and Chris Hemsworth—pointing out that the theme of The Costume Institute’s new exhibition, “Reawakening Fashion,” practically begs for innovative, sustainable looks free from cruel and tired fur, feathers, leather, and reptile skins and calling on them to encourage eventgoers and designers to take note.

“This year’s theme is a call to breathe new life into fashion with creativity and innovation, and relying on the sliced-off skin of tormented animals for designs is as antiquated as it is barbaric,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is urging Met Gala sponsors to set a compassionate new course for fashion with fabulous vegan ensembles that no one had to suffer and die for.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to the Met Gala co-chairs follows.

Dear Mses. Lopez, Stoermer Coleman, and Wintour and Messrs. Hemsworth and Martínez Ocasio:

I’m writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) with a Met Gala appeal in line with today’s awakened concern for wildlife and the abuse and exploitation of animals generally: Will you please simply encourage all participants to “reawaken fashion”—the theme of The Costume Institute’s new exhibition—by choosing garments free from fur, feathers, leather, and reptile skins?

We all know that factory-farmed minks, foxes, rabbits, raccoon dogs, and chinchillas spend their entire lives in cramped, filthy wire cages before they or the young they bear are electrocuted, gassed, decapitated, or beaten to death. As our investigative videos show, feathers come from frightened ostriches and other birds whose throats are slit as well as birds who are decapitated; leather is skin taken from cows and other animals who meet their awful end on a blood-soaked killing floor; and crocodiles and alligators used for their skins are often stabbed and skinned alive after being pulled from the fetid pits in which they languish. Of course, these days we can no longer be unaware of how the production of animal-derived clothing—with its chemicals, carbon emissions, land devastation, and water contamination—threatens the future of the planet and everyone on it.

Animal abuse is never in vogue, and a fashion reawakening would help save all our skins—so please, let’s get loud for vegan fashion and create un día when no one is slaughtered and skinned for this year’s Met Gala. May we count on you to be true superheroes and freedom fighters for animals and encourage those attending to choose styles that feature exclusively vegan materials?

Very truly yours,

Ingrid Newkirk

President

PETA