Video: Protesters Take the Stage During BCBG Exec’s Speech Over Fur and Angora Wool Sales

Action Is Latest Salvo in PETA Campaign Calling for Shoppers to Skip BCBG Max Azria as Long as Vile Products Are on the Racks

For Immediate Release:
November 17, 2014

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Attendees at Fashionista’s How to Make It in Fashion conference were shocked this morning when a pair of PETA supporters took to the stage at a panel featuring BCBG Max Azria CEO Lubov Azria and informed the audience that BCBG sells fur from Asiatic raccoon dogs and clothes made from angora wool—two products typically obtained from China, where there are no penalties for abusing animals used and killed for fur. Video footage of the interruption is available here.

“Shoppers and the fashion industry alike have the right to know that BCBG is profiting off an industry that rips the fur out of screaming rabbits and skins animals alive for their fur,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on BCBG to get with the times and take fur and angora wool off its shelves, as dozens of major retailers have done.”

As revealed in PETA’s graphic video targeting BCBG, workers on angora rabbit farms in China—the source of 90 percent of the angora sold around the world—tie rabbits down and rip the fur out of their skin, leaving behind bloody wounds, while the animals scream in pain. Footage from China also shows raccoon dogs slammed to the ground and beaten before their skin is peeled off. One animal even lifts his head and blinks after his skin has been removed.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—is asking its members and supporters to visit PETA.org to send a letter to BCBG calling on the company to take fur and angora wool off its shelves. Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Inditex, Limited Brands, H&M, Gap Inc., and Victoria’s Secret have all completely banned both products.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.