Vegan-Fashion-Awards-LogoAs more people learn how easy it is to be kind to animals by choosing clothes and accessories made from vegan leather, faux fur, “mock croc” and other cruelty-free materials, more and more top designers and high-street retailers are meeting the demand for top-quality vegan fashion. These are exciting times as compassionate consumers change the face of fashion. In recognition, PETA is celebrating the very best animal-free clothing and accessories with the third annual PETA UK Vegan Fashion Awards.

Animal-free fashion is the future, and forward-thinking designers are experimenting with innovative, high-tech materials that are vegan and eco-friendly and offer ethical consumers a vast array of cruelty-free choices – from high-street to high-end. This year’s winners show just how easy it is to get the look of leather, fur, wool, silk, down and exotic skins without harming a hair on an animal’s head!

Traditionally, the clothing industry has cared little about the animals exploited for fashion:

  • On fur farms, animals such as foxes, minks and chinchillas spend their entire lives confined to tiny, filthy wire cages and are killed by gassing, neck-breaking or beating, and rabbits used for angora endure the agony of having their fur yanked out by the fistful.
  • In the global leather industry, more than 1 billion cows are slaughtered each year, often in extremely crude and painful conditions.
  • In wool production, Australian sheep farmers mutilate lambs in a cruel procedure known as “mulesing”, and shearing often leaves sheep battered and bleeding.
  • In the exotic-skins industry, the lives of millions of snakes, alligators, seals, zebras, lizards, ostriches and other beautiful animals are taken each year.
  • In down production, live geese and ducks are often pinned down and their feathers are ripped out by the handful.

But thankfully, as these award recipients prove, retailers and designers are finally beginning to recognise the demand for animal-friendly clothes. Compassionate consumers are beginning to change the face of fashion and help spare animals a life of suffering.