Here’s some exciting news to give animal advocates a reason to celebrate — London Fashion Week has announced it is going fur-free!

This announcement comes after Humane Society International UK (HSI UK) petitioned London Fashion Week to drop the cruel material. Wendy Higgins, Director of Communications for HSI UK expressed, “This is a pivotal moment in the demise of the cruel fur trade. We are thrilled that the British Fashion Council has made this trail-blazing decision for London Fashion Week to go fur-free. It sends out a clarion call of compassion to the other fashion weeks in New York, Paris and Milan to similarly take a bold ethical stance, and it challenges too those designers still using fur to re-examine their morals. Fur cruelty is no longer welcome on the catwalk at London Fashion Week, and that is a powerful and exhilarating victory for animals that we hope others will follow … The future is fur-free … we all just took one step closer to realizing that future.”

This wonderful news falls in line with the growing trend away from fur in the fashion industry. Earlier this week, Burberry announced it was going fur-free, joining major fashion powerhouses like Gucci, Versace, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Armani, HUGO BOSS, Michael Kors, and Jimmy Choo, just to name a few. Additionally, California cities West Hollywood, Berkeley, and San Francisco have bans on the sale of fur, as do Sao Paolo, Brazil, and India. Los Angeles is also considering a ban.

The UK is a world leader in the anti-fur movement, having enforced the world’s first fur farming ban in 2000. However, there is still much more work to be done, as the country still permits the import of fur, an issue HSI is also trying to change. And although so many leading designers have dropped fur, there are still some like Prada and Dolce & Gabbana that do.

Why is fur so terrible? Aside from the clear answer that it is the product of murdered animals who live in cramped, barren cages their entire lives only to be gassed or painfully electrocuted (often anally) and skinned (while some are still alive!), the fur industry also has an environmental impact.

Higgins explained: “There is nothing luxurious about incarcerating wild animals in tiny metal cages their whole lives and then gassing or electrocuting them for frivolous fur, and nothing glamorous about polluting our environment with a cocktail of toxic chemicals and substances such as chromium and formaldehyde used in the dressing and tanning process. The fur trade comes with a hefty environmental price tag from start to finish, and no amount of greenwashing by the fur trade can change that. All materials have an eco-footprint, but fur is right at the top of that list. Consumers are recognizing that and demanding higher ethical standards than that.”

HSI reports that 130 million animals like mink are raised for the fur industry each year, but this number does not include the hundreds of millions of rabbits killed for their fur annually, information that is not reported by the fur industry. And in the wild, animals like coyotes suffer slow, agonizing deaths in traps before being skinned so their fur can trim hoods on jackets — downright appalling and nauseating. How anyone could see wearing a dead animal as “fashion” is beyond us, and we are so glad London Fashion Week is making it even more clear that fur is SO out.

We hope the rest of the fashion industry soon follows suit! Sign this petition to get Dolce & Gabbana to ditch fur. And sign this petition to get Prada to do away with fur.

And remember to share this exciting news with your network as a reminder that FUR IS OUT!

Image Source: Pixabay