Armani Group is the latest luxury fashion house to ban cruel Angora wool - taken from live rabbits - from its collections.
Angora wool – the extremely soft wool removed from live rabbits – has been added to Armani Group’s list of excluded materials under its fur-free policy.
Armani Group, which operates brands like Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, EA7, and Armani Exchange, will not use Angora in any future collections starting from the 2022-23 autumn/winter season.
Armani has banned Angora under pressure from animal rights organisations and more environmentally conscious shoppers, and it’s not the first brand to do so.
Other brands which exclude the hand-plucked fur from their collections include Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Burberry, Valentino, and Stella McCartney.
Armani’s move marks another step forward for animal welfare after the group banned animal fur in 2016. Since then, it has experimented with various animal-free designs, using vegan alternatives to leather and fur.
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PETA’s campaign against Angora wool
The decision came about after talks with animal rights organisation PETA.
In 2013, undercover investigators for PETA conducted an exposé involving 10 different so-called “humane” Angora farms in China.
The footage from the investigation has shown workers holding rabbits by the necks against boards and ripping fistfuls of fur from their bodies. The animals were left “screaming in pain,” PETA said.
China is the world’s top producer of Angora wool, producing around 90 per cent of the world’s supply.
“Today’s socially conscious fashion consumers want nothing to do with an industry that rips the hair out of fully conscious rabbits’ bodies,” said PETA Vice President of International Programmes, Mimi Bekhechi.
“PETA is celebrating Armani’s decision to extend their no-fur policy to include Angora, and encourages all designers still using it to get with the times.”
Faux fur is the way forward: Learn more about how it compares to real fur environmentally.
