Influencer Jamie Logan Hits London Selling… Dog Leather?
Londoners will never look at leather the same way after vegan influencer, Jamie Logan, set up a “dog leather” stall at London’s famed Marble Arch peddling everything from “Jack Russell jackets” to “Beagle belts and bags.”
Of course, Jamie wasn’t selling the hides of real hounds but she did provide passersby with some serious food for thought – if you wouldn’t wear a dog, why wear a cow?
No Matter Whose Skin It Is, Someone Suffers
Regardless of their species, every animal is someone.
Whether a cow or a dog, every animal is a sentient individual with their own wants and needs. They all experience emotional and physical pain when slaughtered and flayed for their skin.
Worldwide, each year, more than one billion cows, bulls, and other animals are killed for their skin. These animals are forcibly bred, and, from a young age, endure a series of painful mutilations, such as castration, branding, and dehorning, often without pain relief.
After a short and lonely life of confinement, animals exploited in the animal skins industry are forced onto lorries bound for abattoirs, where workers slit their throats (sometimes while still conscious) and skin and dismember them, in front of others awaiting the same fate.
If You Wouldn’t Wear a Dog, Why Wear a Cow?
There’s a reason cows and bulls are often called “grass puppies” – they’re a lot like dogs!
Clever and social, cows and bulls form strong bonds with friends and family, even pairing up with “best” friends they miss when absent. They can also recognise over 100 individuals and remember how others have treated them.
Like dogs, cows and bulls love to play and can often be seen at rescue sanctuaries romping and jumping, playing with balls, and getting the “zoomies.”
The only difference between a dog and a cow is our perception.
Decades of propaganda have misled us into thinking that some animals matter more than others. But, just as it’s not true that any one gender or race is superior to any other, no species is superior, either.
Believing that wearing the skin of a dog is wrong, but that wearing the skin of a cow or bull is OK, is not only hypocritical, but a case of speciesism.
Speciesism is a powerful and dangerous prejudice we must challenge and overcome, just as we have other “isms” that label others “less than”.
Only by looking past our differences and celebrating the traits we share can we truly achieve equality.
Animal Skin is Terrible for the Planet and People
Animal skins aren’t just cruel, they’re polluting, too, and take a terrible toll on the health of those tasked with their production.
The production of animal skins drives 80% of deforestation in the Amazon, where swathes of rainforest are torched and felled to make room for animal ranching. This contributes to significant species decline and biodiversity loss.
Animals on factory farms also produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population, usually without sanitisation. This excrement runs into oceans, exacerbating algal blooms that suffocate water life and cause ocean dead zones.
To stop it rotting, animal skin products also require a witches’ brew of toxins, such as highly toxic chromium, formaldehyde, benzene, and various solvents, to be applied during the process, which is incredibly damaging to waterways.
These chemicals also harm the humans who work with them, many of whom are children, some as young as eight. Approximately 90% of workers who live and work in areas where hazardous tannery chemicals are released die before they reach 50.
You Never Truly Know Whose Skin You’re In
Wearing any animal’s skin is wrong, but many people don’t realise that it’s not only cows and bulls who die in the industry, where supply chains can be murky at best.
Dogs and cats can also be used in the animal skins trade. Without testing every garment you pick up, there’s no way to identify which species the skin came from.
The only way to avoid walking about in a Jack Russel jacket is never to buy anything labelled “leather”, no matter whose skin it is!
Leave Animal Skin in the Past, Choose Vegan Leather!
Happily, we don’t have to skin anyone for fashion. From apples and cacti to mushrooms and cork, innovative designers have created a plethora of plant leathers that are beautiful, durable, eco-friendly, and kind to animals.
Just check out our guide to vegan leather:
And urge Coach to stop selling animal skins:
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