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September 24, 2021 –
From Plant-Based News

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One of the world’s largest luxury fashion companies, Kering Group, is ditching fur for good: citing ethical and ‘modernity’ reasons.

Kering is the parent company of Gucci, Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, and Balenciaga. Additionally, Bottega Veneta, Boucheron, Girard-Perregaux, Qeelin, Pomellato, Ulysse Nardin, Brioni, and more.

Most of Kering’s brands had already dropped fur from their collections. Now, Yves Saint Laurent and Brioni have followed suit.

This means the entire fashion conglomerate is now fur-free.

‘The right thing to do’

Kering, which brought in €13.1 billion of revenue last year, started going fur-free back in 2017. This is when Gucci, which was founded 100 years ago, stopped using fur.

François-Henri Pinault is the chairman and CEO of Kering. He said in a statement sent to Plant Based News: “Going entirely fur free is just the right thing to do. We do it out of conviction, for the sake of ethics and modernity.”

In a separate statement, Pinault explained: “For many years, Kering has sought to take the lead in sustainability, guided by a vision of luxury that is inseparable from the very highest environmental and social values and standards. 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.”

“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,” he added.

‘A new era’

PJ Smith, Director of Fashion Policy at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), commended the move. HSUS worked with Gucci in 2017 to announce its fur-free policy.

“Kering is synonymous with luxury fashion, and with this announcement, it marks a new era for what is considered luxury to now include what is socially responsible, ethical and innovative,” Smith said. “We hope the rest of the fashion industry will take notice choosing compassion and innovation over an outdated idea of luxury.”

Starting from the Fall 2022 collections, none of the Kering’s houses will use fur. However, the group’s brands still produce items with wool and leather. The company says the production of these materials will be monitored under its set of animal welfare standards, which it published in 2019.