Brooks Brothers Bans Exotic Skins After PETA Appeal

Company Nabs Vegan Chocolates in Thanks for Compassionate Move

For Immediate Release:
May 1, 2020

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Following years of urging by PETA, Brooks Brothers—the oldest retailer in the country—has confirmed that it has stopped ordering products made with exotic-animal skins. In thanks, PETA sent the company a box of delicious vegan chocolates.

“Behind every crocodile- or snake-skin item is an animal who experienced a violent, bloody death,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA thanks Brooks Brothers for protecting these vulnerable animals and points kind consumers to high-quality vegan materials that are the future of fashion.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—notes that as the world battles a deadly virus that originated in other animals used for their flesh, Brooks Brothers’ decision is more important than ever. Animals raised for their skins are kept in squalid, severely crowded conditions on farms, which create a major breeding ground for a wide of range of pathogens, including zoonotic ones like salmonella, E. coli, and West Nile virus.

PETA and its affiliates have documented that in the exotic-skins industry, alligators‘ necks are hacked open and metal rods are shoved into their heads; snakes are pumped full of water to loosen their skin, which is peeled off, often while they’re still conscious; and feathers are yanked out of ostriches with pliers while the birds are still alive.

Brooks Brothers—which stopped purchasing mohair in 2018 in response to PETA’s investigation of angora goat farms in South Africa—joins Jil Sander, Chanel, Diane von Furstenberg, HUGO BOSS, Victoria Beckham, Vivienne Westwood, and many other companies in banning exotic skins.

PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.