Diane Von Furstenberg Bans Mohair After PETA Exposé

For Immediate Release:

19 July 2018

Contact:

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

DIANE VON FURSTENBERG BANS MOHAIR AFTER PETA EXPOSÉ

Luxury Brand Joins Growing List of Mohair-Banning Retailers After Investigation Revealed Workers Mutilating, Killing Goats

London – After PETA US urged Diane von Furstenberg (DVF) to ban mohair, the New York–based luxury clothing company joined the more than 240 brands worldwide that have pledged not to sell the cruelly obtained material.

The move from DVF – a high-end fashion brand with a global distribution network in more than 70 countries, including 111 stores throughout Europe, the Middle East, North and South America, and the Asia-Pacific region – follows PETA’s first-of-its-kind video exposé of the mohair industry in South Africa, which is the source of more than 50 per cent of the world’s mohair. The exposé shows that shearers – who are paid by volume, not by the hour – worked quickly and carelessly, leaving angora goats with gaping wounds. Workers then roughly stitched the animals up without giving them any pain relief. And unwanted goats died in agonising ways: one worker slowly cut their throats with a dull knife while they were fully conscious and then broke their necks, hacking one animal’s head off. Others were hauled to an abattoir, where they were electrically shocked, hung upside down, and slashed across the throat.

“PETA’s exposé pulled back the curtain on the way in which gentle baby goats cried out in fear and pain as they were shorn for mohair jumpers and scarves,” says PETA Director Elisa Allen. “Diane von Furstenberg has joined the growing list of fashion brands that recognise that today’s shoppers don’t support cruelty to animals.”

PETA US – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – has asked law-enforcement agencies in South Africa to investigate and file charges, as appropriate, for potential violations of that country’s Animals Protection Act, 1962. An investigation is underway. To thank DVF for its kind decision, PETA US is sending it a box of delicious vegan chocolates.

Other brands that have banned mohair include Gap, Banana Republic, H&M, Topshop, and Zara, among hundreds of others.

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

#