PETA’s Sexy Santas to Ask Shoppers to Cross Animal Skins Off Their Shopping Lists

‘St. Nicks’ Want Everyone to Know What Happens to Animals Used for Fur, Leather, and Wool

For Immediate Release:
December 23, 2014

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Baltimore, MD –

What:             Rocking skin-tight red mini-dresses and festive hats, PETA’s “Sexy Santas” will greet last-minute shoppers on Wednesday and hand out candy canes with tags reading, “Be Sweet to Animals: Don’t Buy Fur, Leather, or Wool.” The jolly St. Nicks’ point? That with all the great natural and synthetic fashions available, it’s not necessary to skin, shear, or mutilate animals to be in style. “Shoppers can find faux fur, vegan leather, and other stylish alternatives to animal skins everywhere, from Santa Claus Lane to 34th Street,” says PETA “Sexy Santa” Meggan Anderson. “PETA is asking people to give everyone—including animals—a reason to celebrate this holiday season.” Animals on fur farms are electrocuted or poisoned or have their necks broken. Video footage from an exposé of China’s angora industry shows workers tearing chunks of fur from rabbits’ skin as the animals scream in pain. Cows destined to be killed for leather endure painful mutilations, and just last week, PETA exposed a thriving dog-leather industry in China, where workers club dogs, slit their throats, and peel off their skin to make women’s fashion gloves, men’s work gloves, and other products that are exported around the world. And in the U.S. and Australia (the source of 90 percent of the world’s merino wool), sheep are cut to shreds, kicked, and punched by impatient shearers. Tim Gunn narrates a blistering indictment of the skins industry in this video for PETA, whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear.” Where:           Intersection of S. Calvert and E. Pratt streets, Baltimore When:             Wednesday, December 24, 11 a.m. For more information, please visit PETA.org.