RAISING A STINK: Animal rights group PETA on Thursday continued its action to urge Hermès to stop selling items made from exotic skin.
An activist, who wore a T-shirt saying “Hermès Stinks of Death” and held up a sign reading “Hermès: Stop Exotic Skins,” released a stink bomb inside the brand’s boutique on Rue de Sèvres on the Left Bank of Paris.
The person was later thrown out of the store, which is not far away from the upmarket department store Le Bon Marché.
Mimi Bekhechi, vice president for Europe at PETA, said, “It is high time Hermès stopped turning its nose up at animal rights — an issue of major importance to today’s consumers, who reject industries that confine and torture animals. We urge the company to turn its back on these archaic and cruel materials, which stink of death.”
PETA has been actively pressuring Hermès to retire the crocodile-skin Birkin bag and commit to a corporate policy against the use of exotic skins.
Following the death of actress and singer Jane Birkin last summer, PETA asked the French luxury house to retire the crocodile skin versions of her namesake handbags “so that no more wildlife is killed in her name.”
A PETA protester sneaked into the brand’s spring 2024 runway show in October and managed to walk down the runway while holding a protest sign. Her journey was cut short as fashion influencer Bryanboy snatched the sign from her hands.
Earlier this month, Poorva Joshipura, PETA India director, also staged a protest against the use by fashion companies of exotic animal skins outside a Hermès boutique in Mumbai while wearing an alligator-skin costume.
In 2021, a similar protest took place outside the brand’s New Bond Street store in London, where two PETA sympathizers wore Venetian crocodile masks while carrying anti-exotic skin signs cut in the shape of a Kelly bag.
PETA has claimed that some Hermès bags are made with exotic skins sourced from Australian farms where crocodiles were confined to cramped cages or small concrete pits filled with filthy water before being subjected to electric shocks, dragged and violently slaughtered.
The animal rights group also claimed that the use of animal skins — such as that of crocodiles — by the fashion industry increases the risk of dangerous viruses spreading to humans.
In calling for a corporate commitment to discontinue the use of crocodile skin, the organization noted that other luxury houses — including Burberry, Chanel, Mulberry, Victoria Beckham, Karl Lagerfeld, Paul Smith and Stella McCartney — have banned exotic skins from their collections. Few of those brands use exotic skins in any significant way, however.
Hermès did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
