After Being Contacted by PETA, Genesco Confirms End of Angora Sales

High-End Retailer Drops Cruelly Produced Items Following Exposé Revealing That Live Rabbits’ Fur Is Torn From Their Bodies

For Immediate Release:
February 9, 2016

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Nashville, Tenn. — Retail giant Genesco has joined over 110 top brands—including Ann Inc., Calvin Klein, H&M, Hugo Boss, Inditex, Talbots, and Tommy Hilfiger—in banning angora wool online and at its 2,800 locations worldwide. Genesco—the parent company to well-known brands such as Dockers, Johnston & Murphy, and Journeys—made this compassionate decision after learning from PETA about the animal rights group’s groundbreaking exposé of the angora industry, which revealed that live rabbits’ fur is ripped from their skin.

“Genesco’s compassionate decision follows a rising trend toward kindness among consumers and retailers, as PETA has noted for years,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “By ending sales of angora wool, this company is taking a strong stand against cruelty to animals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—reveals in its exposé that some rabbits used for angora scream in pain as their fur is ripped out, while others are cut or sheared and invariably wounded by the sharp tools as they struggle desperately to escape. In addition, the angora-farming industry condemns these intelligent, social animals to years of isolation in small, filthy wire cages.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.