Pour another one out for fur.
SMCP, the Paris-based owner of Claudie Perlot, Maje and Sandro, confirmed to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) this month that it will no longer feature fur among its collections beginning January 2020.
All of Maje’s furs are now synthetic, and Sandro CEO Isabelle Allouch told the animal rights group that the French fashion brand has stopped creating fur-containing designs because of animal-welfare concerns. Claudie Pierlot, too, noted on social media that “no more designs using fur will be produced from January 2020.”
SMCP joins brands such as Chanel, Burberry, Gucci, Michael Kors, Prada and Versace, along with high-end e-tailers Farfetch and Yoox Net-a-Porter, in abandoning fur. International fashion events such as Amsterdam Fashion Week and Oslo Fashion Week have declared fur verboten, as have the state of California and several councils in the United Kingdom.
“Consumers today want nothing to do with materials obtained from suffering animals who are caged, beaten and skinned,” Elisa Allen, director of PETA in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. “By turning their backs on fur, SMCP and its brands made the right decision for animals, the planet and their clients.”
SMCP, which traffics in accessible luxury and “Parisian chic,” operates 1,466 points of sale in 40 countries.
PETA, famous for its animal-cruelty exposés, recently published undercover footage of fur-farm workers in Russia bludgeoning, decapitating and electrocuting animals across five facilities, including ones it says sources skins for fur auction houses Kopenhagen Fur and Saga Furs. Earlier this month, it urged Nordstrom to follow fellow department stores Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s in “going fur-free.”
More than 100 million animals such as rabbits, foxes and mink are killed each year for their fur, according to the Humane Society. The majority—85 percent—originate from fur factory farms, while the remainder are trapped in the wild.
As fur begins to lose its luster, market research firm Technavio projects the global artificial fur market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19 percent to hit $129.21 million by 2023.
Despite all this, fur remains a booming industry.
In 2017, fur generated global retail sales of $30 billion, according to the International Fur Federation, a global trade group. More than half ($17 billion) of them came from China, where the fur-boycott movement has yet to gain traction, followed by Europe ($7 billion) and Russia ($2.2 billion). Perhaps reflecting the growing conversation over animal rights, the United States, in comparison, accounted for a more modest $1.4 billion.
