Anthropologie to Be ‘Closed for Cruelty’ by PETA

An ‘Alpaca’ Will Help Kick Off International Campaign Against Urban Outfitters Inc. With Protests at Flagship Stores

For Immediate Release:
September 28, 2020

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

After Anthropologie was implicated in a first-of-its-kind PETA investigation—in which workers tied crying alpacas to a rack, pulling their legs so hard that they nearly came out of their sockets, and left them with bloody wounds from rough shearing—activists and an “alpaca” will surround the brand’s Philadelphia store and block the entrance tomorrow to demand that it stop selling alpaca fleece and anything else cruelly obtained from animals. The protesters will hold graphic signs that show the terrified faces of exploited animals and read, “The Face of Fashion Is Fear.” PETA supporters worldwide will begin holding other similar protests this week.

When:    Tuesday, September 29, 12 noon—at 12:30 p.m., the protesters will march to the Urban Outfitters and Free People stores near the intersection of S. 17th and Walnut streets

Where:    Anthropologie, 1801 Walnut St., Philadelphia

“Urban Outfitters brands want to appeal to open-minded and progressive young people, but they’re missing the mark by selling fleece taken from animals who get beat up, cut up, and killed in the process,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Anything forcibly taken from an animal is a product of fear, and PETA is holding Urban Outfitters to its consumer pledge of sustainability and ethics by calling on the company to sell only vegan materials, which is easy for it to do because it already stocks them.”

PETA’s investigation took place at the world’s largest privately owned alpaca farm in Peru, which is owned by the Michell Group, a supplier of major brands, including Anthropologie. The disturbing footage shows that during shearing, workers hit, kicked, tied down, and mutilated screaming alpacas, who spit and vomited in fear.

The group is also urging all Urban Outfitters Inc. brands—including Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and Free People—to drop wool, leather, cashmere, mohair, down, and silk, as each one is a product of extreme violence, cruelty, and fear. PETA and its affiliates have released dozens of videos revealing that during shearing, workers hit, kick, and mutilate gentle sheep for their wool; leave sensitive goats with bloody, gaping wounds at mohair and cashmere operations; burn, electroshock, beat, and slaughter cows for leather; yank out the feathers of ducks and geese by the fistful for down; and boil silkworms alive to produce silk.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, the human-supremacist worldview that animals are nothing more than commodities. For more information, please visit PETA.org.