Fashion magazine Elle will stop using fur in all its editorial and advertising content worldwide, international director Valeria Bessolo Llopiz said Thursday. Elle is the first major magazine to take this step.
“The presence of animal fur in our pages and on our digital media is no longer in line with our values, nor our readers’,” she told a conference organised by The Business of Fashion. “It is time for Elle to make a statement … rejecting animal cruelty.”
She added that Elle wanted to “increase awareness for animal welfare” and “foster a more humane fashion industry”.
“This announcement will ignite positive change throughout the entire fashion industry and has the potential to save countless animals from a life of suffering and a cruel death,” PJ Smith, director of fashion policy for the Humane Society of the United States, said at the conference. He hopes that other magazines will follow Elle’s example.
“Fur promotions belong only in the back copies of fashion magazines from days gone by,” Elisa Ellen, the UK director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), told news agency AFP.
Each year, over 100 million animals are killed for the fashion, according to animal welfare organization Four Paws.
The majority of fur comes from farms in China and Europe, where minks, racoon dogs, chinchillas, foxes, and other animals are kept in small wired cages from birth and are killed before they’re one year old.
On Wednesday, Italian luxury fashion house Armani’s announced it would stop using angora wool.
The Animal Reader is a small, independent news platform with daily posts about issues affecting animals.
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