Ahead of Shareholder Meeting, PETA France Requests Memorial For Animals Killed for Hermès Bags
29.04.2025
Paris – Ahead of the Hermès shareholders’ meeting on April 30, PETA France has sent a letter to the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Jean-Christophe Fromantin, requesting permission to place a memorial in the town’s cemetery, where founder Thierry Hermès is buried. The tombstone would commemorate the wild animals killed for the brand’s “luxury” bags.
PETA US, which owns stock in the company, will also be asking Executive Chair Axel Dumas to address a question on wild-animal skins during the meeting.
3D rendering illustration of a tombstone nr.4
Photo also available here. Credit: PETA
“Since Thierry Hermès’ death in 1878, societal attitudes towards animals have evolved,” says PETA Vice President of Corporate Projects Yvonne Taylor. “PETA is calling on the company to get with the times and embrace the shift towards vegan materials that didn’t cause sensitive animals to suffer and die.”
Three crocodiles are killed to make just one Hermès Birkin bag. Undercover investigations – including a video from the Australian association Kindness Project, filmed in intensive breeding farms belonging to Hermès – revealed crocodiles crowded in cramped enclosures then isolated in small, filthy cages before being dragged, mutilated, and stabbed with a screwdriver. PETA entities have also documented how workers in the fashion industry chop off conscious lizards’ heads with machetes, inflate snakes with water, and electrically stun ostriches before slitting their throats in full view of their terrified flockmates.
PETA notes that many other major designers—such as Chanel, Balenciaga, Burberry, Mulberry, Victoria Beckham, Diane von Furstenberg, and Vivienne Westwood—have banned the use of the skin of reptiles or other wildlife from their collections.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]
The full text of PETA’s shareholder question follows.
My name is James Fraser, and I have a question for Executive Chair Axel Dumas on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
An investigation into Australian farms owned by Hermès and its suppliers shows that crocodiles are being confined to cramped cages or small concrete pens filled with filthy water before being with blades and screwdrivers—some while still conscious. On farms in South Africa supplying Hermès with ostrich skins, the young birds spend their short lives on barren feedlots. In a slaughterhouse, workers force ostriches into stun boxes—causing many to slip and fall in the process—and then slit their throats. In response to the investigation, Hermès continues to mislead the public and shareholders by referencing CITES—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora—knowing full well that this regulation relates to the number of animals traded, not the horrific way they are reared and killed.
Monsieur Dumas, the sale of macabre accessories made from the body parts of wild animals is tarnishing our company’s reputation and alienating the conscious consumers who represent the future of luxury fashion. When will Hermès ban wild-animal skins and embrace ethical luxury by launching vegan Birkin and Kelly bags?
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