Students to Protest Anthropologie Over Cruelty
Young Activists Say That Alpaca, Wool, Leather, and More Belong on Their Original Owners
For Immediate Release:
November 13, 2020
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
Tomorrow, members of the Kansas City hub of PETA-backed Students Opposing Speciesism (SOS) will gather across from Anthropologie in the Town Center Plaza mall as part of PETA’s new international campaign demanding that all Urban Outfitters, Inc., brands—which include Anthropologie, Free People, and Urban Outfitters—stop selling alpaca fleece and anything else cruelly obtained from animals. The protesters will hold signs showing the terrified faces of exploited animals and reading, “The Face of Fashion Is Fear.”
When: Saturday, November 14, 1–3 p.m.
Where: Town Center Plaza, 5024 W. 119th St. (outside Anthropologie, between Houlihan’s and Restoration Hardware), Leawood
PETA launched the campaign after Anthropologie was implicated in a first-of-its-kind PETA investigation into the alpaca industry revealing that workers at a farm in Peru tied crying alpacas to a rack, pulling their legs so hard that they nearly came out of their sockets, and left them with bloody wounds from rough shearing. The mutilated animals spit and vomited in fear.
“These outspoken students are holding Anthropologie accountable for marketing itself as progressive even as it continues to exploit animals for clothing,” says Rachelle Owen, director of the SOS program. “PETA is proud to help them push for a better world, one in which gentle animals aren’t beaten, mutilated, and killed for fashion.”
PETA and its affiliates have released dozens of videos revealing that during shearing, workers hit, kick, and mutilate gentle sheep for their wool; leave sensitive goats with bloody, gaping wounds at mohair and cashmere operations; burn, electroshock, beat, and slaughter cows for leather; yank out the feathers of ducks and geese by the fistful for down; and boil silkworms alive to produce silk.
PETA’s SOS program is a youth-led revolt against speciesism—the old belief that, despite their unique talents and abilities, other animals are inferior to humans and it’s acceptable to exploit them.
PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear.” For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
