Fur Is Out of Fashion. Is Wool Next?

Back Row with Amy Odell

This episode explores the evolving landscape of animal welfare advocacy in fashion, highlighting New York Fashion Week's historic shift to a fur-free official calendar and the lingering

Key takeaways

• New York Fashion Week became the first major fashion week to officially ban fur from its runway calendar, signaling that fur is no longer an acceptable cyclical trend in mainstream fashion.
• LVMH remains the primary corporate holdout on fur bans, with Fendi still utilizing upcycled or stored pelts despite industry-wide shifts toward cruelty-free materials.

Main topics

• Fur-free fashion week policies
• Animal welfare activism tactics and brand negotiations

Notable quotes

"Policy is the only thing that's going to change this industry. As much as I would love to pull at the heartstrings of CEOs or creative heads, in my experience, they don't give a damn."

Conclusion

The episode underscores a critical inflection point in fashion sustainability: the

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) One of the big winners this most recent fashion month has been animal rights protesters. This is pretty ironic given that when these people from PETA storm runways waving their signs, advocating for animal welfare and blaming brands for animal cruelty, they usually get dragged off the runway by security and nobody really thinks twice about them. However, this season, owing in large part, I think, to former CFDA president and CEO Stephen Kolb dragging two protesters off the runway at the Cause show at New York Fashion Week himself, they've gotten a lot of attention. The PETA protesters returned to H &M's runway at London Fashion Week and probably owing to what happened at Cause, which is owned by H &M, the company just kind of let them walk and sort of gingerly guided them off the runway. Anyway, what were they protesting? Actually, it happened to be wool. I talked to a rep from PETA when I was reporting on the Kolb incident, and they claim that they have found serious animal abuse in H &M Group's supply chain when it comes to wool farming. To assess where the animal rights fight in fashion stands at this moment in time and to learn more about the wool issue, I invited PJ Smith on the show today. PJ is the director of fashion policy for the Humane World for Animals, which you may know as its old name, the Humane Society. PJ Smith has been doing this for about 20 years. He spent a lot of time focused on fur. The tactics he uses to advocate within the fashion industry are pretty different from PETA's. I wanted to hear from him about why that is. With fur more or less off the runways, this was the first New York Fashion Week to officially be designated fur-free. Where does the animal rights fight in fashion even go from here? I like talking to PJ because I find he's very reasonable and rational on this issue. He had some great insight and information to share about how the animal welfare activists can work with sustainability activists, why sheep on wool farms are treated inhumanely, and what we and brands can do about it. I'm Amy O'Dell, and this is the Back Row Podcast. Today, it's where the animal welfare fight in fashion goes from here. If you like the show, don't forget to tap, follow, subscribe wherever you listen or watch. We're an independent program and your support, your reviews help other people find this show. I am here with PJ Smith from Humane World for Animals, which you all may remember as the Humane Society. PJ, it's so good to see you. Good Speaker 2 (2:27) to see you, Amy. This has to be, we've done a couple of these, right? Or it's been some years. We've never potted Speaker 1 (2:33) together, though I talk to you regularly and I've been interviewing you. I think my whole, like, it feels like my whole career since I was at the CUT. Speaker 2 (2:41) Yeah. I Speaker 1 (2:42) don't think we've ever potted together. Well, Speaker 2 (2:45) I didn't even know potted was a word. So I'm super excited to be potting with you. Speaker 1 (2:48) Yeah. So we've had a really interesting season from an animal rights, animal activist. perspective so far. We're recording this just after New York Fashion Week ended. And this was an important fashion week because it was the first fur-free New York Fashion Week. And I want you to tell us why that was significant because I think a lot of people listening, watching this show probably know that many fashion brands, many significant fashion brands and significant retailers have banned fur. Publications have banned fur. Like there's been a lot of banning of fur. So why was it significant that New York Fashion Week was fur free? Speaker 2 (3:32) Sure. So as you said, you know, so many brands going back to, you know, 2015, we saw this wave of retailers and brands from Neiman Marcus to Gucci to Michael Kors phasing out fur from their collections. And we saw that momentum. so much that we are now at the point where we are talking to publications like you said Vogue and Hearst so Conde Nast and Hearst have both gone for free in the last couple years and now Fashion Weeks so the important part for New York Fashion Week going for free is that you are literally removing fur from cyclical trends anymore So it's not going to be an acceptable trend moving forward because you're not going to see it in the pages of Vogue. You're not going to see it in the pages of Harper's Bazaar. And you're not going to see it on runways anymore. So London Fashion Week went for free several years ago. Speaker 1 (4:29) And Speaker 2 (4:29) then New York Fashion Week went for free just December of last year. So there was a little bit of a phase-in period allowing designers time to react to that. And then Milan Fashion Week, you know, didn't go as far as New York Fashion Week, but it did come out and say we were not going to put any fur on our social media or on our website. And so out of the big four, you're really left with Paris Fashion Week that doesn't have a policy on it. But again, I think this is like an important step. After all the brands, after all the retailers have gone for free, you have these institutions. that keep trends alive, whether that's Vogue, whether that's New York Fashion Week. And now that they have policies, it really puts a lot of confidence that we're not going to see fur, as we know it, come back as an acceptable trend. Speaker 1 (5:18) Right. So fur free in the context of New York Fashion Week meant that designers would not promote fur on the runways, right? But it wasn't a ban against those designers making or selling it. Speaker 2 (5:28) No, it wasn't a ban. They don't have that sort of power. But if you want to be listed on the official calendar for New York Fashion Week, you can't show fur. And so that's everyone that wants to show. On Speaker 1 (5:41) your Speaker 2 (5:41) Fashion Speaker 1 (5:41) Week show. Speaker 2 (5:42) Yes, exactly. So on any of the runways, if you're listed on the calendar, the official New York Fashion Week calendar, it's what the CFDA could control. You can't show fur. We saw a lot of faux fur this last year, and that's getting better and better, which is super exciting. It's almost can't even tell the difference at this point. Speaker 1 (6:02) Yeah. So the CFDA is the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and it's the trade association for American fashion designers. And they put on the official version of New York Fashion Week. And then there's other events that happen that they might not be on the CFDA calendar, but they call themselves New York Fashion Week events. Sure. It could be presentations, fashion shows or parties, whatever. So we're talking about the part that the CFDA organizes. Speaker 2 (6:25) Correct. Speaker 1 (6:26) But a lot of these, a lot of the big brands in New York probably have already gone for free. Speaker 2 (6:31) Most of them. Really, the only one that's the big brand that's left is anything that falls under LVMH. Speaker 1 (6:37) They're Speaker 2 (6:38) really the elephant in the room at this point. I think that the biggest obstacle with them is... you know, with caring when Gucci went for free and Alexander McQueen went for free, it was because they gave brands a lot of autonomy to make their decisions for themselves. LVMH doesn't do that. So either they do it as a brand group or they don't do it at all. And in that corner is Fendi, which is still, you know, a big furrier. I will say that they have diversified their products greatly in the last several years. There's Speaker 1 (7:10) not Speaker 2 (7:10) that Speaker 1 (7:10) much fur. There's not that much fur. Speaker 2 (7:13) And then, you know, they keep on saying that it's upcycled. And I can tell you, I don't know what that means because... Speaker 1 (7:20) Upcycled fur? Speaker 2 (7:21) Upcycled fur in that I'm guessing that means it was just laying around in warehouses that LVMH has stored all of their... pelts and skins through over the years that you know if a designer if a designer sees something and they're like oh I want this in jet black and it's not black enough they will just like store it in a warehouse and so when they say upcycling I don't know what that means because it kind of sounds like oh we just had it in a warehouse it's not actually taking like fur that's been post-consumer and upcycling it so I think they're getting away with a little bit of a vagueness of what upcycling means in that situation. Speaker 1 (8:03) So I want you to talk about how you work and how Humane World for Animals work. Because I know that you go in and you have meetings. You really sit and you talk to people. And I think you do it calmly. You're like, you're always so calm, PJ. Speaker 2 (8:18) But Speaker 1 (8:19) just talk about how do you work with these brands? When did you start taking meetings with them? Just how do you get them to come around and say, you know what, we're not going to do fur anymore. And I think to your point about curing, I just want to say, I think that Alessandro Michele, wasn't he the creative director there when Gucci banned fur? Speaker 2 (8:38) Yes. Yeah. Speaker 1 (8:39) I think he deserves some credit there. I think he was like really in touch with young people and he was kind of like, this is really dated and it's not cool and we're not going to do it. from my perspective as a journalist, that was a really significant one. Speaker 2 (8:54) It was him and Marco Bazzari really coming together. The CEO. Speaker 1 (8:58) Yes, Speaker 2 (8:59) at the time. And I remember, I mean, it was such strong statements when they announced their fur-free policy. It was with Livia Firth and Marco Bazzari doing an interview. And we worked with Gucci for years before to really finalize that policy. But Marco Bazzari was like, it's not modern. anymore. And if I think the one part that I thought was really interesting was he was like, we want to continue to hire the next generation of creatives. And they're demanding these sort of changes at this point. And so he was like, we have to get with the times if we want to bring in those folks. And so it was just so encouraging at the time. And I can tell you, you know, to see the bandwagon effect happen in real time, where Gucci was. at the top of its game. And I, every brand just wanted to be associated with that change. And so you saw Gucci, I think it was like a couple months later was Michael Kors. But as far as how I work with companies, I would say, you know, when I started this position nearly 20 years ago, Amy, it's been a long time, always working on fur, always working on fashion. And it was really hard to have these sort of conversations. And I think it was primarily because the fashion industry became desensitized to a traditional way of activism. You know, runway takeovers, it's in the news again, but runway takeovers was the predominant way that a lot of activism was seen at that point. And then you saw just like these big action. To Speaker 1 (10:38) be clear, you mean. people and we're seeing this with PETA now and we're going to talk about wool, but the people getting the signs that say, I don't know what they say about wool, I forget, but they go onto the runway and they wave their signs and maybe security comes and removes them. Speaker 2 (10:52) Yeah. I mean, that's, that's something they've always done. And so I think the, the fashion industry sort of got tired of it and it wasn't really effective and it was hard to sort of. reignite those conversations with a lot of those brands. And what was different about Humane Society at the time, but Humane World for Animals today was that we were not necessarily going in there saying, we want you to ban fur. We were working on fur labeling and advertising at the time. So not sexy, but, you know, it was really. And an important thing, because there was a loophole in the federal law that said that if the value of fur was less than $150, we're talking about trim, palms on hats. Those are like dollars, pennies. It's not that much money to throw a palm on a hat. Therefore, it didn't have to be labeled. It didn't have to be on the labeled. And so you would see, and this was at the time, you know, a lot of sales were moving online. A copywriter would get this garment, you know, at a retailer or a brand, and they would say acrylic. You would see cotton. You would see all these different materials listed, but you wouldn't see fur. So what ended up happening was a copywriter would say faux fur. And we got really good at that time to like zoom in and you could say, oh, okay, I can see. that that's real fur. We would buy it, we would test it, and then we would bring this to the Federal Trade Commission that oversees advertising and labeling. And, you know, we were able to get so much momentum on this that consumers were being duped to buying real fur when they were actively looking for faux fur that it led to a federal law called the Truth in Fur Labeling Act that passed in 2010 that just... closed that loophole. So all fur had to be labeled with the country origin and the species. So it just gave the consumers the basic information so they knew what they were buying. What that did, you know, it was big enough that we were able to pass a federal law at the time President Obama signed it. But it got our foot in the door with all these brands because we were going in there and saying, OK, we're not going to ask you to go for free, but we want to make sure your labeling is right. We're going to help you with that. And I remember a lot of these companies would say, okay, let's make sure that our consumers, this is something we all are aligned on, making sure consumers have the right information. And so we were at the right place at the right time. We were sitting there, we were educating. A lot of times the brand would say, okay, well, if we get the labeling right, can