‘Don’t Let Forever 21 Pull the Wool Over Your Eyes!’ Urge New PETA Ads

Bus Ads Remind Shoppers, ‘Wool Is Just as Cruel as Fur’

For Immediate Release:
February 20, 2019

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

As part of its international campaign to persuade Forever 21 to ban wool, PETA has placed nine ads on buses operating near the retailer’s Syracuse store that urge, “Don’t Let Forever 21 Pull the Wool Over Your Eyes. Wool Is Just as Cruel as Fur.” The ads will be up for eight weeks.

“Gentle sheep are beaten and mutilated for wool sweaters, hats, and scarves, and Forever 21 is profiting from their suffering,” says PETA Campaign Manager Christina Sewell. “PETA’s ads encourage shoppers to stay away from Forever 21 until the company agrees to stock exclusively stylish and compassionate vegan knits.”

Two recent PETA video exposés recorded on sheep farms in Australia—the world’s top exporter of wool—show workers beating sheep in the face, deliberately mutilating them, and cutting the throats of fully conscious animals. A farm manager carved swaths of flesh from lambs’ hindquarters as the animals thrashed and cried, and one worker bragged, “[I] hit one [sheep] so hard I knocked it out. F**ked it under the jaw a bit too hard.” The videos are PETA’s 10^th and 11^th exposés of the global wool industry since 2014, all of which the group has shared with Forever 21—but the company has refused to act.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—is also targeting Forever 21 with bus ads in Buffalo, New York, and Louisville, Kentucky, running a total of 27 ads in the three cities.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.