PETA to Take on Coach at NYFW with Gruesome Anti-Leather Display
The following is a statement from PETA about the importance of this protest and for consumers to learn about the realities of leather manufacturing:
“While the fur industry is dead and nearly gone, leather production is just as violent, painful, and completely unnecessary as the fur trade. Gentle cows are branded on the face, electroshocked, beaten, hung upside down, and have their throats slit. Compassionate shoppers do not need to wait for greedy, unenlightened companies like Coach to do the right thing. They can make a difference today by leaving leather out of their wardrobes. Instead, they can choose from the dozens of durable, stylish, cruelty-free materials that are available everywhere, and are made from eco-friendly plants and recycled synthetics that no animals were killed for. Everyone can visit PETA.org to learn how easy it is to save animals and prevent suffering by wearing vegan.”
At the Fashion Week events earlier this year, PETA protesters called for Adidas to also ditch their newest leather line. We also covered their protests at NYFW a couple of years back, also against Michael Kors and Coach.
New York Fashion Week attendees will be confronted with a horrifying sight outside the Coach show on Monday, as a “blood-splattered” PETA supporter will besiege the entrance and display a realistic, severed cow’s head alongside the message, “Here is the Rest of Your Coach Bag.” The provocative action is the latest salvo in PETA’s campaign calling on Coach to end its reckless use of cruel and environmentally devastating leather.
“Behind every bit of leather is a thinking, feeling being who endured a lifetime of suffering before they were sliced to pieces for their skin,” says PETA President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Coach to stop dealing in the body parts of butchered cows and switch to the ultramodern vegan materials today’s compassionate consumers want.”
Cows have friends, hold grudges against other cows, and mourn when a loved one dies or when they’re separated from each other. A PETA exposé of the world’s largest leather processor—which has been linked to Coach—showed that workers brand calves on the face, beat cows and bulls, and shock them with electric prods. The leather industry also contributes to the climate catastrophe, land devastation, deforestation, pollution, water contamination, and loss of biodiversity.
Banner Image: PETA Protest at Coach. Image Credit – PETA
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world, and PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters globally. PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: in laboratories, in the food industry, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment business. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of rodents, birds, and other animals who are often considered “pests” as well as cruelty to domesticated animals. PETA works through public education, investigative newsgathering and reporting, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.