VICTORY: The Kooples Goes Fur-Free!
We’re excited to announce that French fashion brand The Kooples has decided to stop supporting the cruel fur industry!
After meeting with a PETA France representative, the clothing company—which has stores in Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Beijing, Seoul, and other locations around the world—has announced that it will not be using real fur in any of its future collections.
This decision will spare many animals the horror of life and death on squalid fur farms and brings us one step closer to making all stores go completely fur-free. The Kooples now joins a huge list of retailers, from Calvin Klein to Topshop, that have rejected fur. Earlier this year, the brand also stopped selling angora wool, after a wave of protests from concerned consumers.
The Kooples’ director general, Nicolas Dreyfus, said:
We are extremely concerned by animal suffering and … we’ve made the decision to stop the use of all fur in any future collections.
We had already made the choice to stop the use of angora in all our collections and in all countries, which was thanks to PETA UK’s courage and wisdom in helping us understand the cruel treatment inflicted on animals of which we were not aware.
Every single fur farm that PETA Asia has visited in China—the world’s top fur exporter—has been beyond cruel:
Investigators have witnessed and documented that foxes are electrocuted, dogs are bludgeoned to death, raccoon dogs are skinned alive, and rabbits are forced to live inside cramped, filthy cages before finally being strung up and skinned—sometimes while still alive.
The globalization of the fur trade has made it impossible to know where fur comes from. Animal skins move through international auction houses and are purchased by and distributed to manufacturers around the world. Finished goods are often exported. Even if a fur garment’s label says that it was made in a European country (where farms are little better and legislation to protect animals on fur farms is still woefully inadequate), the animals were likely raised and slaughtered elsewhere—possibly on an unregulated Chinese fur farm.
Please share the good news that The Kooples has gone fur-free and inspire more people to take action for animals. And remember: The only way to prevent the unimaginable cruelty that animals endure on fur farms is never to wear any fur. If you ever see a shop selling fur, speak out!
