UCLA Students to Protest Urban Outfitters Over Cruelty
Young Activists Say Alpaca, Wool, Leather, and Other Animal-Derived Materials Belong to Their Original Owners
For Immediate Release:
November 26, 2020
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
On Black Friday—the busiest shopping day of the year—members of the UCLA hub of the PETA-backed group Students Opposing Speciesism (SOS) will gather at an Urban Outfitters store as part of PETA’s international campaign demanding that the company stop selling leather, alpaca fleece, wool, mohair, and anything else obtained from animals. The protesters will hold signs showing the terrified faces of exploited animals and reading, “The Face of Fashion Is Fear.”
“Behind every wool sweater or leather purse on Urban Outfitters’ shelves was a gentle animal who felt pain and fear and didn’t want to suffer for fashion,” says PETA Director of Students Opposing Speciesism Program Rachelle Owen. “PETA is calling on the retailer to stop selling materials stolen from animals and stock only stylish vegan designs like those it already offers.”
PETA launched its campaign against Urban Outfitters, Inc., brands—which also include Anthropologie and Free People—after Anthropologie was implicated in a first-of-its-kind PETA investigation revealing that workers mutilated alpacas during shearing. Other videos have revealed that 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.
Where: Urban Outfitters, 7650 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles
When: Friday, November 27, 4:30 p.m.
SOS is a youth-led revolt against speciesism—the old belief that, despite their unique talents and abilities, other animals are inferior to humans and it’s acceptable to exploit them.
PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear.” For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
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