Shocking New Video: Model Robyn Lawley Condemns Designer Brands
In a new PETA video, model Robyn Lawley shines a spotlight on the gruesome history of “luxury” accessories sold by companies like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, and Hermès.
“When you really learn the truths of how these poor, beautiful animals are kept and how they are killed, the bag’s beauty turns grey.” ~ Robyn Lawley.
The video features footage from various PETA exposés of the wild-animal skins supply chain, revealing the routine abuse of crocodiles, snakes, lizards and ostriches for items like Hermès’ crocodile-skin Birkin Bag and Louis Vuitton’s Capucine bag, made from snakes’ skins.
Crocodiles
Australia supplies 60 per cent of the world’s crocodile skins, with some Australian operations even owned by brands like Hermès, meaning native crocodiles are exploited for foreign profits.
Bred in captivity or stolen as eggs from their nests, crocodiles are raised in filthy, tiny, concrete tanks. When deemed big enough, they’re dragged to abattoirs where screwdrivers are jammed into their spinal cords to scramble their brains. Some are still conscious when their bodies are hacked at, and their skin is flayed.
Lizards
From the tiniest chameleon to the largest Komodo, lizards are fascinating, adaptable, and sensitive individuals who’ve lived on earth for hundreds of millions of years. Some species give life to live babies, like us, and live together as a doting family unit.
For mere trinkets, purses, and keyrings, lizards are snatched from their homes, bound, and hacked apart, often while still alive.
Snakes
Snakes are sensitive animals whose inscrutable exterior belies their rich emotional lives.
Pythons are doting mothers who coil carefully around baby snakes to protect them, and some snakes practice ‘social buffering’, in which they calm each other down in stressful situations.
For bags and other accessories, snakes are captured, hung from trees, stood on, painfully inflated with water and air, and stripped of their skins, sometimes while they writhe in agony.
Ostriches
The world’s biggest bird and the fastest-running bird on the planet, ostriches are gentle, clever individuals. Both mum and dad are devoted parents, taking turns to nurture their young.
Ostriches are widely exploited for fashion, with both their feathers and their skin used. Investigation footage from farms and slaughterhouses in South Africa shows ostriches being butchered in full view of their friends. After their throats are slit, their feathers are plucked, and their dimpled skin is stripped from them.
Only Vegan Leather is Luxury
No one needs to abuse and skin an animal for luxurious, stylish accessories. Vegan leathers, crafted from a wide range of plants such as mushrooms, apples, corn, olives, and cactus, are increasingly making their way onto catwalks and into stores.
Make Like Robyn and Model True Beauty Every Day – Go Vegan!
You don’t have to storm a croc farm to make a difference. The single most powerful thing you can do for animals and the planet is to go vegan!
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