Madewell Earns ‘Pants on Fire’ Award From PETA
For Immediate Release:
January 27, 2021
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
“Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire” awards are on their way from PETA to 10 companies that are guilty of humane washing—that is, trying to deceive customers about their use and abuse of animals—and Madewell is among them.
The Queens-based fashion brand earned the dishonor by claiming to care about animal welfare while selling cashmere, wool, and leather—all products of extreme fear and pain. A PETA Asia investigation into cashmere farms and slaughterhouses in China and Mongolia showed that goats were left with bloody, gaping wounds from the hair-removal process—and an Australian sheep shearer recently pleaded guilty to cruelty to animals after being caught beating sheep in the face with heavy electric clippers during a separate PETA Asia investigation. Cows used for leather endure all the cruelty of the meat industry, including castration, branding, and tail-docking, before their throats are slit in slaughterhouses.
“Instead of meeting the skyrocketing demand for vegan fashion that’s kind to animals, brands like Madewell are hiding behind empty welfare policies that don’t do squat to stop animal suffering,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA won’t stand by and let them pull the wool—or the cashmere or leather—over concerned customers’ eyes.”
Other recipients of the “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire” awards include Nellie’s Free Range Eggs, which advertises its eggs with photos of hens on rolling green hills even though PETA uncovered thousands of hens crammed into a shed at one Nellie’s “free range” supplier, and Canada Goose, which claims to care about animals while selling coats made with fur from coyotes, who can endure excruciating pain in steel traps, and down feathers from birds who are violently killed.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
