Following years of urging by PETA U.K., fashion icon and designer Victoria Beckham has pledged to stop using exotic skins in her designs.
Her brand also affirmed its fur-free status in a statement: “Victoria Beckham will cease the use of exotic skins in all collections as of AW19. The Victoria Beckham brand has never used fur in its clothing or accessories collections and confirmed last year that the brand will remain fur free.”
“Behind every crocodile, alligator, snake, or lizard handbag or pair of shoes is a violent death,” says PETA U.K. Director Elisa Allen. “Victoria Beckham’s decision to ban exotic skins will spare countless remarkable animals immense suffering, and PETA U.K. calls on other luxury brands to follow her kind example.”
PETA — whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” — and its affiliates have conducted several exposés into the exotic-skins industry. The group found that alligators are kept in fetid water inside dank, dark sheds before their necks are hacked open and metal rods are shoved into their heads in an attempt to scramble their brains, often while they’re fully conscious. One-year-old ostriches are transported to slaughterhouses, where workers turn them upside down in a “stunner,” slit their throats, and pluck their feathers out. And snakes are commonly nailed to trees before they’re skinned alive.
In banning exotic skins from all designs, Beckham joins Vivienne Westwood, Diane von Furstenberg, and Chanel, which have made the same compassionate decision.
