After learning from PETA that the Miss Florida USA pageant will not be awarding a mink coat to its winner on July 16, Tim Gunn—the fashion guru, Project Runway mentor, and creative officer at Liz Claiborne, Inc., who previously asked pageant coordinators to dump fur prizes—sent a personal letter to Grant H. Gravitt Jr., executive producer of the pageant, to thank him for making the decision.
“As you may remember, I made a personal appeal on PETA’s behalf in 2009 asking that Miss Florida USA no longer use real furs as prizes, and I’m absolutely thrilled to hear the recent news that this year’s winner will not receive a mink coat,” he wrote. "As you can see in the video I hosted for PETA, minks and other animals on fur farms are crammed into wire cages that prevent them from taking more than a few steps in any direction, and they often go insane and resort to self-mutilation and cannibalism—all before they have their necks broken or are anally or vaginally electrocuted.
“Thank you for making the kind decision to forgo furs as prizes and sending the message to other pageants and people everywhere that there’s nothing glamorous about the way that animals suffer and die in the fur industry.”
