3 min read
In the wake of a PETA Asia investigation that revealed horrific cruelty to snakes in Kering’s supply chain, we confronted the company—which owns, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and other luxury brands—at its annual meeting. As a Kering shareholder, we hammered its leadership to cut ties with the reptile-skin trade before showing footage from the latest investigation.
What Did PETA Asia’s Latest Investigation Into Thailand’s Exotic-Skins Trade Reveal?
On two python farms that supply skins to a Kering-owned tannery, investigators witnessed snakes forced to languish in tiny, filthy cages—sometimes amid their own feces. PETA Asia’s eyewitnesses also saw workers pin struggling pythons down by their necks and bash them over the head with a hammer before driving metal hooks through their heads.
To make snakes’ skin easier to remove, workers inflated them with water, even as they continued to move. According to one reptile expert, most of the animals were likely conscious during this excruciating process.
Call-Out Feels Like Déjà Vu
This isn’t the first time that PETA entities have put Kering on blast over its ties to the violent skins trade. A 2021 PETA Asia investigation into an Indonesian slaughterhouse confirming that it supplied lizard skins to Kering revealed that workers decapitated and dismembered the animals using machetes, without attempting to stun them first. And in 2015, Gucci was implicated in a PETA U.S. investigation into the two largest ostrich-slaughter companies in the world, which found that workers forced birds into stun boxes and slit their throats.
Hypocrisy Isn’t a Good Look
Kering knows that the socially conscious consumers driving today’s fashion movements want sustainable and cruelty-free luxury items. The brand claims that it’s “focused on implementing and verifying the highest standards of animal welfare across our supply chains,” but PETA entities have repeatedly shown that there’s no such thing as a “humane” animal-derived material.
We pointed out to Kering’s shareholders that switching to vegan materials is not only kinder to animals but also lucrative, as the luxury vegan handbag market is projected to more than double its value by 2030.
Tell Kering That Compassion Is in Style
Snakes aren’t accessories. They’re complex, sentient beings who—like all our fellow animals—experience pain and fear. You can speak up for snakes and other animals who are exploited and killed for their skin, feathers, and fur by wearing only vegan materials and telling other consumers to do the same. Urge Kering to stop selling anything made from the skin of pythons or other animals:
