Free People Gives Up Angora Wool After PETA Campaign
Tens of Thousands of Kind Consumers Speak Out; Urban Outfitters–Owned Company Agrees to Stop Producing Items Made With Rabbits’ Fur
For Immediate Release:
October 21, 2015
Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382
In the past week, more than 65,000 PETA supporters contacted retailer Free People to urge the Urban Outfitters–owned company to stop selling angora wool. Although it initially responded to complaints by claiming that its purchases meet the company’s cruelty-free standards, a week later, it agreed to “cease buying and producing products containing angora fur.”
This brings Free People in line with more than 110 retailers—including another Urban Outfitters–owned company, Anthropologie, as well as Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Ann Inc., H&M, and Inditex—that have agreed to stop selling angora products after learning from PETA that rabbits on angora farms scream out in pain as the fur is ripped from their skin.
“It only took a week for Free People to yield to consumer demand and agree to stop making items with fur that’s ripped out of rabbits’ sensitive skin,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is now urging the company to pull angora products from its shelves immediately, as Inditex, French Connection, and other responsible companies have done.”
As revealed by PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—workers on angora farms violently rip fur from rabbits’ skin, while other rabbits are cut or sheared and invariably wounded by the sharp tools as they struggle desperately to escape. PETA also recently released photos and video footage showing similar cruelty to rabbits on angora farms deemed “humane” by third-party auditors. A PETA veterinarian found that rabbits suffered from eye infections, inner ear infections, and respiratory diseases and were being denied basic veterinary care and relief from heat in excess of 100 degrees.
