‘Bloodied’ and ‘Skinned’ PETA India Director Condemns Hermès Horror
“Hermès: Accessory to Murder” – that’s the message PETA India director Poorva Joshipura, wearing an alligator-skin costume and lying in a pool of blood, sent outside Hermès’ boutique in Mumbai on 1 December as she called on the French fashion house to ban the use of alligators, crocodiles, and other exotic animals, who are tormented and killed to make the brand’s leather bags and accessories.
Joshipura’s action follows footage showing live reptiles being sawed open and left to bleed to death on a farm that supplied skins to Hermès. More revelations have since followed: an investigation released by Kindness Project and shared by PETA entities revealed that crocodiles on farms owned by Hermès were being kept in cramped, barren conditions and then mutilated and stabbed with a screwdriver.
It takes three crocodiles to make just one Hermès bag. Many designers, including Mulberry, Victoria Beckham, Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel, Stella McCartney, and Burberry, have banned reptile skins from their collections.
Joshipura’s new book Survival at Stake: How Our Treatment of Animals Is Key to Human Existence has just been released by HarperCollins India. It sounds alarm bells for how our treatment of animals can harm humans. For instance, experts have warned that the use of snakes, crocodiles, or other exotic animals for fashion could fuel an epidemic. Her first book For a Moment of Taste: How What You Eat Impacts Animals, the Planet and Your Health was also published by HarperCollins India.
Every bit of animal skin, no matter how small, represents the intense suffering of all animals who are killed to make clothing. Every fur coat, leather shoe, and snakeskin wallet is the same – because it is their skin, not ours. Pledge to never wear the skin of a cow, snake, alligator, seal, rabbit, or any other animal.
You can help!
Urge Hermès to Stop Selling Exotic Skins
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