PETA intensifies actions against luxury industry, takes aim at LVMH and Kering

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Published
Dec 22, 2021

Having targeted Hermès for its use of crocodile skins in fall of this year, animal rights NGO PETA continues to take aim at major luxury houses. PETA Asia has published two investigations carried out in Indonesian slaughterhouses, including one which works for Kering-owned Gucci and allegedly decapitates lizards while they are still alive. Two LVMH suppliers have also been accused of butchering snakes that are still conscious. 

In the case of the slaughterhouses linked to LVMH, a distressing video shows pythons being hung up in order to be filled with water via pipes. This is meant to stretch the snakes' skin before they are stunned with a hammer then decapitated while obviously still alive. In a video taken in a slaughterhouse linked by PETA to Gucci, the snakes are stunned or killed by being drowned in buckets of water, before receiving up to 14 strikes with a machete in order to be decapitated. According to PETA, lizard heads remain conscious and can still feel pain 30 minutes after being cut off. Two still living heads can be seen in the videos published by the NGO. 

"These luxury giants can't continue to close their eyes to the suffering of animals," said Mimi Bekhechi, vice president for international programs at PETA. "Cruelty is inherent to the production of exotic skins, and it's time for these brands to join the numerous couture houses that have already banned them."

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For the NGO, these images contradict the commitments made by Kering to "implement and verify the highest standards in terms of animal welfare in its supply chains" and to ensure "ethical treatment at the end of life."

LVMH was already targeted in 2016 by an investigation denouncing the way in which crocodiles were reared and slaughtered at a Vietnamese supplier of Louis Vuitton. Later in the same year, it was the conditions of the slaughterhouses of a South African ostrich skin supplier working with Louis Vuitton, Prada and Hermès which came under fire. 

In June 2021, PETA achieved a symbolic victory thanks to outdoor brand Canada Goose, famous for its parkas with fur-lined hoods, which announced that it would be banning fur in its collections, becoming the latest in a long list of brands to renounce the material. PETA has, however, continued its campaign against the use of down in the label's jackets, notably through an operation carried out in the middle of Paris during the French capital's most recent fashion week in September. 

Following this happening, which involved three women dressed up as plucked birds, there were the bloodied humanoid sheep that protested against the use of wool in front of department stores during Black Friday in November. And on the issue of skins, at the start of December, the NGO launched "Urban Outraged," a site parodying Urban Outfitters, which offered jackets and bags made from human skin.