Who Are You Wearing? PETA to Put On ‘Human Skin’ Fashion Show Outside Urban Outfitters

For Immediate Release:
June 20, 2023

Contact:
Brittney Williams 202-483-7382

On Thursday, PETA models will strut their stuff on a “runway” outside Miami’s Urban Outfitters store, showcasing fashionable designs made of hyper-realistic “human leather.” The clothing comes from Urban Outraged, a guerrilla marketing campaign in the guise of an online store that sells jackets, boots, skirts, and bags made from what looks like human skin. PETA hopes the gruesome fashion show will make people question the acceptability of using any living, feeling being’s skin for fashion—something Urban Outfitters brands, including Anthropologie and Free People, do by selling sheep’s wool, cashmere, mohair, leather, down, silk, and alpaca wool.

When:    Thursday, June 22, 12 noon

Where:    Outside Urban Outfitters, 819 Lincoln Rd., Miami

PETA entities have uncovered extreme cruelty and abuse in every industry that raises animals for their skin, hair, or feathers. Their investigations have documented workers hitting, tying down, and mutilating alpacas; dragging goats across the floor, picking them up by the tail, throwing them, and mutilating them with knives and pliers; plucking geese alive; and beating and stomping on sheep and kicking them in the face.

“A cow’s skin belongs to her, and she feels fear and pain in a slaughterhouse just as much as you or I would,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is challenging shoppers to see the individual behind every bit of animal skin on store racks and shelves and opt for cruelty-free clothing instead.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.

For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.