Following in the footsteps of Gucci, Michael Kors is the latest high-end fashion brand to pledge to go fur-free in 2018. According to Business of Fashion, the policy will go into effect next year, with production of fur items to be entirely phased out by December 2018.
This will also include Jimmy Choo, which Michael Kors Holdings Limited purchased this year for $1. 2 billion, and which has been known to use fur accents on footwear.
“Due to technological advances in fabrications, we now have the ability to create a luxe aesthetic using non-animal fur. We will showcase these new techniques in our upcoming runway show in February,” Kors said in a statement.
The American fashion house now joins not just Gucci but direct competitors like Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and Armani in eschewing real fur.
That being said, according to Fur Information Council of America spokesperson Keith Kaplan, who spoke to BOF, “nearly 70 percent of major designers included fur in their Autumn/Winter 2017 collections. ” So there’s still a long way to go before high fashion can be said to be even mostly cruelty-free, and there are some notable hold-outs, including Karl Lagerfeld, of Chanel and Fendi fame, who has been an outspoken proponent of real fur.
PETA has been lobbying fashion houses for years to end their use of fur, including staging disturbing protests outside fashion shows and stores of brands who refuse to go faux. The animal rights group has aggressively targeted Kors in the past.
“This is a wonderful holiday gift for fur-bearing animals and follows many years of protests at Michael Kors fashion shows and boutiques by PETA and other animal rights groups,” a spokesperson for the group wrote in a blog post following the news.
