Why Did the Eiffel Tower Get a Bloody Makeover During a Pre-Olympics Fashion Show?
Update (June 24, 2024): During the Olympics-themed Vogue World fashion show at Paris’ Place Vendôme, PETA France lit up some of the city’s most iconic landmarks with a sky-high message to expose the cruel practices of LVMH—the Paris Olympics’ top local sponsor.
The projection—which featured the message “Louis Vuitton: Drop Exotic Skins,” PETA’s spoof Phryge (a mascot of the Olympics), and shocking investigative footage of humans slaughtering crocodiles—also illuminated the Eiffel Tower and the Louis Vuitton hotel on the Champs-Élysées, which is scheduled to open in 2026.
Originally posted on May 9, 2024:
Do the Olympic Games really stand for “friendship, respect, and excellence”? The Olympic parody mascot had another message to deliver in Marseille today. To call out the cruel practices of LVMH, the main sponsor of the 2024 Games, a PETA France “Phryge” disrupted the Olympic torch’s journey with a message: “The Olympics, sponsored by cruelty to animals.”
PETA France’s costumed activist disrupted the event in Marseille, brandishing a “crocodile corpse” in one hand and, in the other, a “bloody” bag bearing the message “Louis Vuitton: Stop using exotic skins.”
The cruel practices that LVMH inflicts on animals are a far cry from the values professed by the Olympics. The company claims to embody an “exceptional spirit of innovation” and is attempting to use the event to position itself as a modern leader, yet it continues to torture and kill animals for “fashion” accessories made of fur or exotic skins.
Investigations Reveal the Cruelty Hidden Behind Exotic Skins
A PETA Asia investigation into slaughterhouses in Indonesia that supply LVMH shows snakes being beaten with hammers, inflated with water, and cut with razors while they are likely still conscious.
PETA entities have also documented how the fashion industry cuts the necks of crocodiles and drives metal rods into their spines, decapitates still-conscious lizards with machetes, and electrically stuns ostriches before slashing their throats in view of their terrified flockmates.
Vegan Materials Promote Respect and Excellence
Torturing animals to make handbags or coats is archaic and unacceptable, especially when high-end vegan options are available. Fashion should be a pleasure, not a tragedy, and more and more designers like Mulberry, Victoria Beckham, Chanel, Burberry, Diane von Furstenberg, and Vivienne Westwood have abandoned the use of skins from reptiles or other wild animals.
Pythons and Crocodiles Need Your Help
Join PETA in urging LVMH to ban exotic skins and fur from Louis Vuitton and its other brands immediately:
