PETA Banned from Prada Boardroom While Demanding End to Exotic-Skin Sales

For Immediate Release:
24 May 2016

Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 235; [email protected]

PETA BANNED FROM PRADA BOARDROOM WHILE DEMANDING END TO EXOTIC-SKIN SALES

Undeterred Italian Singer Wears ‘Dead Ostrich’ Dress in Protest Outside After Exposé Revealed Young Ostriches Shocked, Smacked and Skinned for ‘Luxury’ Bags

Milan – At Prada’s annual meeting in Milan on Tuesday, PETA representatives were banned from the boardroom before they could call on the fashion house to end all exotic-skin sales. PETA US purchased Prada stock in April with the goal of pushing for change from within the company’s boardroom, a move that followed PETA’s release of the first-ever exposé of the ostrich-slaughter industry, revealing that young birds are electrocuted before having their throats slit. However, when attempting to attend the meeting, PETA representatives were barred from entering.

This didn’t stop PETA from educating Prada’s shareholders about cruelty to ostriches. Outside the meeting, Italian singer Daniela Martani, surrounded by life-size “ostriches”, wore an “ostrich corpse” dress to lead PETA’s protest against Prada’s cruelly obtained exotic skins.

Photos are available here, here and here. Video available here.

“Every pockmarked Prada purse means a sensitive young ostrich was turned upside down, killed and plucked in a miserable and terrifying abattoir”, says PETA Director Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA is calling on Prada to bag the exotic skins for good.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – has revealed that young ostriches are kept in barren dirt feedlots until they are sent to abattoirs at just 1 year of age, far short of their natural 40-year life expectancy. At the abattoirs, birds are turned upside down in a stunner, have their throats slit and have their feathers plucked out – creating the bumpy-textured skin used for Prada bags.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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