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PETA claims victory and ends 30-year anti-fur campaign

Animal rights charity PETA has retired its decades-long campaign against the use of animal fur in fashion but will still use nudity to raise awareness about other anti-cruelty causes.

Condemning the use of fur in fashion, PETA’s ‘rather go naked’ sex-forward campaigns have acted as iconic political statements through the years.

Swapping its normally disruptive protests for stylish shots of celebrities across the fields of film, music, and fashion, the animal rights charity has gained a great deal of traction in the past for its fight against the unethical material.

However, after more than three decades of hiring stars to pose in the nude alongside the powerful message, PETA is celebrating the fur trade’s demise by calling it quits on a campaign that’s featured the likes of Christina Applegate, P!nk, and Eva Mendes (to name a few).

Announcing the news pre-NYFW, an event at which PETA has traditionally chosen to unveil its instantly recognisable anti-fur campaigns since the ‘90s, the non-profit group’s decision marks an historic turning point in the fashion industry.

‘Nearly every top designer has shed fur, California has banned it, Queen Elizabeth II has renounced it, Macy’s is closing its fur salons, and now, the largest fur auction house in North America has filed for bankruptcy,’ it said. ‘With fur in a downward spiral, PETA will expand our efforts to expose the violent leather and wool trades.’

And PETA is right. In the last few years, Coach, Burberry, Versace, Gucci, and Tom Ford have all ditched the material in favour of synthetic alternatives, and the entire state of California is indeed officially prohibiting the sale of fur from 2023 onwards.

‘It’s kind of rare for a charity to be able to cancel a campaign because of its success,’ PETA’s senior vice president of campaigns, Dan Matthews, told CNN. ‘I really think our responsibility, as a progressive, forward-thinking charity, is to move on and change with the times rather than revel in past glories.’

After struggling for so long to make headway, it finally seems as though the hard-fought battle against fur in fashion is pretty much won, but don’t fret, the fight against animal cruelty for solely stylish purposes isn’t backing down any time soon.

PETA is aiming to redirect its focus to other anti-cruelty causes, such as its ongoing protests against Canada Goose, a brand which advocates the manufacture of coats made from the fur of wild coyotes caught in steel traps (horrendous, I know). Fashion, you’re not off the hook yet, but this is definitely a start and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

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