Kate Spade to Face PETA Pressure at Annual Meeting
For Immediate Release:
November 4, 2020
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
“Being well aware of the suffering that animals endure in the production of its alpaca and mohair items as well as the environmental devastation associated with it, when will Kate Spade make the positive decision to stop selling alpaca fleece and mohair?” That’s the question that a representative of PETA—which purchased stock in Kate Spade’s parent company, Tapestry, in April during the COVID-19 market downturn—will take to its virtual meeting on Thursday.
PETA’s exposé of the alpaca industry revealed that workers hit, kicked, tied down, and mutilated pregnant alpacas in Peru, the world’s top alpaca producer. And the group’s exposé of the mohair industry revealed that workers dragged, threw around, mutilated, and even cut the throats of fully conscious goats. In both industries, the reckless shearing process left the animals bleeding from deep wounds that workers crudely stitched back up.
“Today’s kind shoppers know that no sweater or scarf is worth mutilating and killing a goat or an alpaca,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Kate Spade to stop selling the few items it makes with alpaca fleece and mohair—a small change that would make a huge difference for animals.”
The Higg Materials Sustainability Index ranks alpaca fleece as the second most environmentally damaging textile, and the mohair industry shares responsibility for environmental hazards associated with animal agriculture, including producing massive amounts of methane and manure and slaughter waste, land use, water contamination, and pollution.
Kate Spade has a fur-free policy and banned angora following a PETA exposé. The hundreds of brands that have banned mohair include Diane von Furstenberg, Brooks Brothers, Gap, Banana Republic, H&M, Topshop, Overstock.com, and Zara—and UNIQLO, ESPRIT, and Marks & Spencer are among the brands that have banned alpaca fleece.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
