Rent the Runway Goes Fur-Free After Pressure From PETA

Designer Rental Service Nabs Bunny-Shaped Vegan Chocolates in Thanks for Compassionate Decision

For Immediate Release:
March 1, 2018

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

A box of bunny-shaped vegan chocolates is on its way from PETA to New York–based clothing-rental company Rent the Runway, which has removed all fur items after learning that animals killed for their fur may be caged, trapped, beaten, and even skinned alive. Its new fur-free policy is the result of repeated requests from PETA as well as mounting public opposition to the use of fur.

“Fur is falling out of favor at a dizzying pace, and Rent the Runway is right on trend,” says PETA Director of Corporate Affairs Anne Brainard. “PETA encourages retailers everywhere to join this compassionate company and refuse to stock or sell coats, collars, and cuffs made from tormented animals.”

As PETA’s video exposé narrated by actor Eva Mendes reveals, animals on fur farms in China, the world’s largest fur exporter, spend their entire lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages, often without access to food or clean water, before they’re electrocuted, gassed, or poisoned. Animals trapped in the wild are often caught in steel-jaw traps—which slam shut on animals’ legs and can cut down to the bone, causing excruciating pain. Some even attempt to chew off their own limbs to escape. If trapped animals don’t die from blood loss, infection, or attacks by predators, trappers arrive to shoot, strangle, beat, or stomp them to death.

Rent the Runway joins hundreds of other top retailers and designers that have implemented fur-free policies, including Giorgio Armani, BCBG Max Azria, Jimmy Choo, Gucci, Michael Kors, and Stella McCartney.

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear.” For more information, please visit PETA.org.