French luxury giant Kering has pledged to go fur-free across its entire portfolio of brands.
Several of the group’s labels have already scrapped the use of fur, including its star brand, Gucci, which was the first to do so back in 2017. Since then, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Brioni and Saint Laurent have all followed suit.
And on Friday the company announced that all its brands would be ditching the use of fur from their fall 2022 collections onwards.
“When it comes to animal welfare, our group has always demonstrated its willingness to improve practices within its own supply chain and the luxury sector in general,” said Kering chair and CEO François-Henri Pinault in a release.
“The time has now come to take a further step forward by ending the use of fur in all our collections. The world has changed, along with our clients, and luxury naturally needs to adapt to that.”
Once a mainstay of luxury fashion – a symbol of opulence and glamour – fur has faced mounting scrutiny over the years as consumer demand for animal-free products continues to grow.
That, compounded by a growing market for faux alternatives, has resulted in a growing number of luxury giants removing the material from their collections in recent years, including the likes of Burberry, Prada and Giorgio Armani to name just a few.
And brands outside of the luxury segment, from fast fashion to high street labels, are also ditching fur. Canada Goose and Moose Knuckles announced they would be scrapping it in recent months, while heavyweights like H&M, Gap, Urban Outfitters, J.Crew have done so for a while.
In 2019, Kering formalised and published a set of animal welfare standards. It said these standards “will continue to be applied, as they concern other animal fibres and materials”.
