Macy’s Makes Fashion More Compassionate by Shedding Exotic Skins

In a massive victory for snakes, ostriches, and other animals, Macy’s—the famed department store—has confirmed that following talks with PETA, it no longer sells exotic skins. Thanks to PETA’s work exposing the speciesism behind breeding and killing animals for fashion, the exotic-skins industry is dying.

Macy’s Makes a Statement for Animals

Macy’s Inc. already has a fur ban across all its subsidiaries, and now it will spare snakes, lizards, alligators, ostriches, and other animals with its exotic-skin ban on its website and at its 445 U.S. locations.

Department stores and fashion brands are favoring compassion and dropping products made of exotic skins more than ever. Macy’s joins other large companies that have banned exotic skins, including Chanel, Diane von Furstenberg, HUGO BOSS, Nine West, Nordstrom, Paul Smith, Selfridges, Victoria Beckham, Vivienne Westwood, bebe, Burberry, and Calvin Klein.

With this victory, Macy’s is protecting exotic animals from being confined to cramped, dirty cages or concrete pits on farms for their entire lives before enduring a terrifying and painful death.

Who Are You Wearing? Choose Vegan Accessories Over a Snakeskin Purse or Alligator Shoes

There are over 3,000 snake species in the world. Most snakes who live near humans are harmless, and snake encounters are relatively rare, thanks to snakes’ keen ability to detect vibrations with their bellies and lower jaws. Some female snakes wrap their bodies around their eggs and shiver to heat themselves up in order to keep the eggs warm.

Lizards can live more than 30 years, often enjoy basking in the sun together, and are sensitive and social animals. When pregnant, female Nile monitors have been known to seek out termite mounds to lay their eggs in, cleverly ensuring that their young will have a handy food source and a better chance at survival.

Mother alligators are very protective of their babies, and hatchling alligators generally stay together as a pod for up to three years. Alligators communicate with a variety of sounds, including coughing, hissing, yelping, calling, bellowing, and vocalizations that are not audible to humans and can travel very long distances.

Ostriches can live for more than 40 years. These intelligent birds share parental duties, with the camouflaged mother tending to the eggs in the daytime and the father, who has black feathers, taking nighttime duty. Young ostriches often stay with their parents for up to three years.

Don’t Shop ’Til They Drop Exotic Skins—and All Products Made by Abusing Animals

Buy only vegan fashion. If you see a company selling exotic skins, politely inform its leadership and customer service that the exotic-skins industry forces animals to live in cramped cages or filthy concrete pits—some narrower than the length of their bodies. At the end of their short, miserable lives, they endure a gruesome death so that companies can sell their skins.

Instead of contributing to that cruelty, it’s easy to find the latest vegan fashion. For ideas, check out PETA’s Vegan Clothing Shopping Guide and How to Wear Vegan.

Gratitude to Macy’s and How to Get More Active

PETA is sending the department store a vegan cake decorated with an ostrich and other animals in thanks and urging companies that still sell exotic skins to follow Macy’s compassionate lead. You can help suffering animals abused and killed for their skins. Demand that LVMH follow suit and shed exotic skins from Louis Vuitton and all its other brands immediately.