Groundbreaking Victory for Animals: Fashion Giant C&A Removes Leather and New Down From Its Product Range

An animal-friendly decision that will have a signal effect: In an adaptation to its animal welfare guidelines, long-established clothing company C&A bans leather and newly plucked down from its extensive textile range. The company announced its new animal welfare policy during the publication of its latest Sustainability Report on 10 October 2024. The report states the removal of all leather covering as of this year. C&A’s new animal welfare policy will come into full effect in July 2025.

PETA India sincerely compliments C&A on yet another contemporary and groundbreaking decision, following the clothing giant’s earlier phase-out of other materials derived from animal exploitation, such as fur, angora, mohair, yak wool, squirrel, fox, and camel hair, bones, horns, shells and coral. As of 2024, the company only sells vegan bags. It is “PETA-Approved Vegan” certified and has won this year’s Vegan Fashion Award in the “Best Vegan Bag” category for PETA Deutschland.

Background information

The fashion industry uses feathers from both dead and living birds. Sensitive, highly social animals such as ducks, ostriches and geese are often forced to spend their entire lives in filthy, dirty sheds or enclosures. During live plucking, the terrified birds have their feathers ripped out while fully conscious. Feathers from so-called post-mortem plucking come from animals which have been killed for the meat or leather industry.

Cows are among the greatest victims of the leather industry. The animals endure cruel standard procedures, such as castration, face-branding, and tail and horn docking – all usually without any anesthesia. Work on slaughterhouse assembly lines is often carried out extremely fast. This often leads to animals – whether birds or cows – still being fully conscious when employees or machines cut their throats with a knife. Their skin and hair are then processed into products such as boots, bags, coats, jackets and purses.

PETA entities have released numerous videos revealing that workers hit, kick, and mutilate sheep for their wool during shearing; leave goats with bloody, gaping wounds at mohair and cashmere operations; slit the throats of cows and buffaloes for leather; ram metal rods down conscious crocodiles’ spines in the exotic-skins industry; suffocate, electrocute, and bludgeon animals to death on fur farms; and boil silkworms alive to produce silk. PETA India’s investigation into Mumbai’s Deonar slaughterhouse found appalling cruelty to animals for leather.