Ann Taylor Sheds Skins

Alligators, crocodiles, snakes and other exotics are farmed for their skins

bye bye croc bags

UPDATE: Kudos To Ann Taylor For Staying At The Forefront Of Conscientious Couture. 11/6/12: Kinship Circle creates consumer-complaint style alerts targeting outlets with fur, skin or wool on their shelves. Upscale retailer Ann Taylor — a one-time target that deleted fur goods in 2006 — now takes extraordinary strides in cruelty-free couture with the removal of exotic skins as well. People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals (PETA) states that the parent company of both Ann Taylor and LOFT clothing/accessory brands, Ann Inc., has nixed products made with exotic-animal skins.

The company's revised animal welfare policy says, “Our private label brands do not use real animal fur and do not knowingly sell products with skins considered to be exotic, including but not limited to alligator, crocodile and ostrich.“ Mango, H&M, Victoria's Secret and PUMA are among other firms that ban exotic-animal skins. Alligators, crocodiles, snakes, lizards and other exotics are hunted or farmed for their skins in Africa, Asia and the United States. Alligators and crocodiles die horribly, knifed in the neck with metal chisels or bashed with metal bats. A PETA undercover probe even found “live snakes nailed to trees by their heads before their skin was torn off their writhing bodies.”

LEARN MORE:

No Exotic Skins for Ann Taylor, LOFT
VIDEO, Joaquin Phoenix Reveals Exotic-Skins Cold-Blooded Horrors: Inside The Exotic Skins Trades. “If you see people wearing or selling exotic skins, please get them to watch PETA's hard-hitting expose, narrated by The Master star and longtime PETA pal Joaquin Phoenix, to learn about the cruelty behind their fashion choices.”

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This alert is closedIt is archived as a letter-writing template

Ann Taylor Stores
J. Patrick Spainhour, Chairman and CEO
100 Ann Taylor Drive
P.O. BOX 571650
Taylorsville, UT 84157-1650
ph: 800-342-5266; fax: 866-232-9266
email: clientservices@anntaylor.com
web: Contact Customer Service

J. Patrick Spainhour:

I am surprised a name as sophisticated as Ann Taylor sells fur and fur-trim items. After years of fur-free inventory, this is disheartening news for the many consumers who won't purchase the byproducts of animal abuse.

Please note that I cannot in good conscious patronize your stores until a no-fur policy is instated.

Accessories such as your “fur pull through scarf” come from the hundreds of millions of rabbits slaughtered annually for their fur. Most are confined in dingy, waste-soaked cages. Unlike rabbits in the wild, those raised on fur farms spend their entire lives standing inside wire mesh boxes. Many perish from dehydration, starvation or self-mutilation. To preserve their fur, killers break necks and bludgeon skulls before stringing rabbits up by their legs to behead them.

Furriers often justify rabbit furs as “leftovers” from the meat industry. Yet according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations: “There is no hope of supplying quality furs under current rational production conditions for meat rabbits, particularly those slaughtered at 11 weeks.” Rabbits raised for meat are a different, larger breed than those bred for their fur. They live and die miserably, simply to make a fashion statement.

All fur is derived from pain and suffering. Animals on fur farms are not even covered under the Humane Slaughter Act. They are electrocuted through their genitals, neck-popped, injected with pesticides, or asphyxiated with carbon monoxide from unfiltered engine exhaust.

In addition, millions of wild animals are mutilated in steel-jaw leghold traps. If they don't succumb to exposure or starvation, they are clubbed, stomped or suffocated when trappers return hours or days later. At least one of every four animals gnaw their teeth to the jawbone or chew off their feet to escape the trap's excruciating clench.

Please keep me informed about any plans to replace all fur with sophisticated faux alternatives. I will gladly shop Ann Taylor when it no longer supports the violent fur trade.

Thank you,
YOUR FULL NAME
ADDRESS, CITY, STATE
COUNTRY

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This alert is closedIt is archived as a historical template

Ann Taylor and Loft ban exotic skins, like ostrich hide

Ann Taylor Stores
J. Patrick Spainhour, Chairman and CEO
100 Ann Taylor Drive
P.O. BOX 571650
Taylorsville, UT 84157-1650
ph: 800-342-5266; fax: 866-232-9266
email: clientservices@anntaylor.com
web: Contact Customer Service

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*THIS ALERT IS CLOSED. IT IS ARCHIVED AS A TEMPLATE.*

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Kinship Circle

In kinship, not dominion, each individual is seen. We do not use the rhetoric of slavery. To define animals as unique beings Guardian, Caregive, Him/Her/They… replace Owner, Own, It… Until moral equity and justice serve all — no one is free.