Victory: The Kooples Succumbs to Pressure, Bans Fur

French Retailer Makes Pledge After PETA Campaign

For Immediate Release:
September 22, 2016

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Following PETA’s campaign to end The Kooples’ sale of fur, which included protests around the world and an appeal from singer Peter Doherty (who once designed a collection for the brand), the French clothing company announced that it will ban fur from all future collections. The popular fashion label—which has approximately 330 stores worldwide and which banned angora wool in February after hearing from PETA—made the announcement after meeting with PETA France and learning that animals suffer on European fur farms.

“We are extremely concerned by animal suffering and … we’ve made the decision to stop the use of all fur in any future collections,” says The Kooples CEO Nicolas Dreyfus. “We had already made the choice to stop the use of angora in all our collections and in all countries, which was thanks to PETA’s courage and wisdom in helping us understand the cruel treatment inflicted on animals of which we were not aware.”

A high-resolution image is available here.

Nearly 60,000 supporters of PETA or its affiliates contacted The Kooples to urge it to “break up” with fur. In New York’s meatpacking district, a crowd of PETA supporters gathered outside The Kooples’ store for a protest, while other activists descended on stores in Paris, Amsterdam, and London.

“Today’s kind shoppers want nothing to do with an industry that confines animals to cramped cages, violently beats them, and tears their skin off,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “By banning fur from future collections, The Kooples has done the right thing for animals and consumers.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—has revealed that animals on fur farms spend their lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages before they’re electrocuted, gassed, or poisoned. In the wild, animals caught in steel-jaw traps can suffer for days from blood loss, dehydration, or attacks by predators before being suffocated or bludgeoned to death by trappers.

The Kooples joins other top retailers and designers—including Topshop, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, and many others—that are 100 percent fur-free.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.