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Giorgio Armani has announced that Armani and all related lines would no longer be using fur, starting later this year with the Autumn/Winter 2016 collection.
The high-end designer collaborated with Humane Society International (HSI) and The Fur Free Alliance, who are committed to ending the fur trade. Armani’s related brands include the high-end lines Giorgio Armani, Armani Privé, and AX | Armani Exchange.
“I am pleased to announce that the Armani Group has made a firm commitment to abolish the use of animal fur in its collections. Technological progress made over the years allows us to have valid alternatives at our disposition that render the use of cruel practices unnecessary as regards animals. Pursuing the positive process undertaken long ago, my company is now taking a major step ahead, reflecting our attention to the critical issues of protecting and caring for the environment and animals.”
Though Armani is not the first designer to go cruelty-free, his no-fur promise is bound to encourage similar promises from other high-end designers who weren’t so convinced before. Other designers that have adopted cruelty-free practices are Hugo Boss, who banned fur and Angora wool from their line last year, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, and Stella McCartney, who excludes both leather and fur from their line and are currently looking to replace items made from wool with vegan wool instead.
This change means that the demand for fur will decrease and, hopefully, the supply will decrease as well as predominantly Chinese fur farms realise that less people want to be involved with the fur trade. An estimated 75 million animals are currently on fur farms, “enduring lives of unrelenting deprivation,” as the HSI describes it. Many rabbits, foxes, raccoon dogs, minks, and more suffer everyday to eventually experience a brutal death and made into an expensive fashion accessory.
The HSI recently exposed the cruel practices of fur farms, where animals live in tiny, barren wire cages and are never able to be the animals they were meant to be and express their innate wild behaviours. Many animals instead display stereotypical behaviours associated with extreme anxiety and despair. Video footage taken by undercover workers exposed the brutal ways that these animals are killed: they are given repeated electrical shocks, beaten to death with metal bars, or skinned alive.
Executive director of HSI’s U.K. division, Claire Bass, explained that, “Armani is the first word in luxury fashion, and so it is hugely significant for the global fashion industry that Armani has pledged to remove animal fur from all his new collections going forward.”
It’s great to hear that modern fashion is catching up to modern realisations of how cruel it can be to farm wild animals for their fur, and hopefully Armani is just the first in the luxury fashion world to denounce these practices.
This story first appeared on Waking Times Media.
