The fur will no longer fly at Dolce & Gabbana.
Following in the footsteps of a number of global luxury brands, Dolce & Gabbana has decided to ban fur and angora from its future collections. The move was announced Wednesday by PETA.
PETA said it spent two decades pressuring the label to give up its fur and angora by having fur-ban supporters send more than 300,000 emails to the Italian fashion house and demonstrate inside and outside D&G stores.
“The fashion industry is realizing that fur is as dead as the animals it is peeled off of,” said Ashley Byrne, PETA’s director of outreach and communications. “We seriously can’t keep up with the brands that are racing to drop fur.”
The announcement comes one day after Moncler, another Italian fashion brand, said it would cease the use of fur in its collections. The company said it will stop sourcing fur this year and the last collection to feature fur will be fall/winter 2023.
The battle to eliminate fur from clothing companies’ collections has been gaining momentum after activists spent years demonstrating, picketing, placing anti-fur ads and sending out press releases to the media.
“We are seeing brands really understanding that animal skins are over. They are not just cruel but bad for the environment and do not appeal to today’s savvy and conscious consumer,” Byrne said.
British designer Stella McCartney was one of the first high-fashion houses to declare in 2001, the year her company was founded, that she would not be using leather, feathers, fur or exotic skins in her vegetarian company.
In 2016, Giorgio Armani made the decision to go fur free. The Italian company explained that technological progress over the years allowed the label to use fur alternatives that made it unnecessary to kill animals for fashion.
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And at the end of 2017, Gucci announced it would give up fur, which was surprising because one of its best-selling items was a fur-lined loafer. Marco Bizzarri, Gucci’s chief executive and president, noted that fur was out of date and that creativity can jump in many directions without using fur.
That same year, the Michael Kors label said that by the end of 2018 it would phase out all fur in its collections. Designer Michael Kors explained that he too was embracing technological advances in fabrications that made it possible to create a luxe aesthetic using non-animal fur.
Prada later joined the anti-fur club, saying that all its brands, which include Prada, Miu Miu, Church’s and Car Shoe, would not use animal fur in its products, starting with the spring/summer 2020 women’s collections.
Retailers and cities say no to fur
While designer labels are slowly caving to the anti-fur movement, some retailers also are axing the idea of stocking fur.
In September, Nordstrom announced that by the end of 2021, it would stop selling products with animal fur or exotic-animal skin. The Seattle-based retailer said its private-label brands hadn’t used those materials for years, so it was extending that philosophy to all the brands it carried.
The Neiman Marcus Group announced that by 2023 it will discontinue selling any products made from animal fur in accordance with its new policy, which eliminates fur products from Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman stores and websites. In addition, the company will be shutting down its 21 fur salons.
Even cities and states are getting in on the anti-fur ban. In 2019, California became the first state to ban the manufacture and sale of fur, starting in 2023. The ban does not apply to leather, cow hides or the full skin of deer, sheep or goats.
Even before California issued its fur ban, West Hollywood in Southern California was ahead of the curve. As of Sept. 21, 2013, retail establishments were prohibited from selling any garments using pelts or skin of any animal with its hair, fleece or fur attached. The ban survived a legal challenge in 2014 by luxury retailer Mayfair House Inc.
Following in West Hollywood’s footsteps, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2018 voted to ban fur sales in that city, starting Jan. 1, 2019. Retailers had until the end of 2019 to sell off existing inventory.