Burberry to Face PETA Pressure Over Exotic Skins at Annual Meeting

Burberry to Face PETA Pressure Over Exotic Skins at Annual Meeting

London – “Will Burberry be true to its commitment to be ‘a force for good in the world’ and stop sourcing exotic skins?” That’s the question a PETA representative will ask tomorrow on behalf of PETA US – which purchased stock in the fashion company last year during the COVID-19 market downturn – at Burberry’s annual meeting in London on Wednesday.

“Today’s customers want conscious, cruelty-free materials – not the skin of a tortured animal,” says PETA Director of Corporate Projects Yvonne Taylor. “PETA is calling on Burberry to join Calvin Klein, Carolina Herrera, Chanel, and other designers in giving exotic skins the boot.”

Burberry policy currently allows the company to use “Ayers, python, and alligator” skins. A recent PETA Asia exposé shows that workers cut a hole in snakes’ heads or tails and inflate them with an air compressor, causing them to suffocate to death. Alligators are commonly kept in fetid water inside dank, dark sheds until workers hack their necks open and shove a metal rod up into their brains, often while they’re still conscious. Conservation experts have also warned that confining and slaughtering wild animals in unsanitary conditions creates breeding grounds for viruses like the novel coronavirus.

Following a vigorous campaign from PETA and its international affiliates, Burberry banned fur and angora in 2018.

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 the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Contact:

Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]

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