Activist Dresses in Sexy Ho-Ho-Holiday Outfit With ‘Skin Is Skin’ Message

Spotted in Hong Kong: A nearly naked PETA activist bared it all for reptiles who are cut up and mutilated for “luxury” Hermès bags, shoes, and accessories.

The demonstration came in the wake of a PETA U.S. exposé of farms that supply crocodile and alligator skins to Hermès-owned tanneries, which revealed that reptiles were kept in barren or severely crowded pits. One farm manager sawed open alligators’ necks, and some of the animals were still moving minutes after the crude attempt to slaughter them.

Workers on farms that supply Hermès-owned tanneries shot alligators in the head, some multiple times, with a captive-bolt gun and sawed into the back of their necks with a box cutter to sever their blood vessels. Some animals survived and were seen moving in ice-water bins minutes afterward. When the captive-bolt gun at one facility was believed to be malfunctioning, the manager told a worker to cut into hundreds of conscious alligators and try to dislocate their vertebrae and then shove a metal rod up their spinal columns in an attempt to scramble their brains.

Many belly skins are sent to an Hermès-owned tannery, where they end up becoming “luxury” items such as Birkin and Kelly handbags that can cost U.S.$50,000 or more. It takes two or three crocodiles to make just one handbag.

Want to do more for animals?

Take action by demanding that Hermès stop selling items made from crocodile and alligator skins here.