Online retailer Boohoo has been slammed this week for selling rabbit fur labelled as ‘faux’, in a move that has been heavily criticised by the UK’s advertising watchdog for being ‘misleading’.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint it received about the jumper listed as ‘Faux Fur Pom Pom Jumper’, and – after testing by animal rights charity Humane Society International (HSI) – it was found to contain real fur, most likely to have come from a rabbit.
Boohoo. com, who said they have a “strong commitment against the sale of real fur’ in any of their products, claim that it was their understanding that the product did not contain real fur.
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“The items were obtained from an external UK-based supplier, who were aware of Boohoo’s commitment against the sale of real fur and had signed a supplier acknowledgement form committing to not supplying products containing real fur.
“Furthermore, a proportion of all stock which contained faux fur was inspected by Boohoo’s quality control team. ”
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On hearing the complaint, Boohoo withdrew the product from sale on their website until the matter was resolved and has stopped any further orders with the supplier.
And while this news may shock many, it’s not the first instance of such a case.
In April 2017, Missguided was discovered to be selling a pair of pink heels containing real cat fur that was labelled ‘faux’, while TK Maxx, Amazon and Not on the High Street have all been found to be selling ‘faux fur’ pieces containing real rabbit, mink and fox furs.
GLAMOUR contacted Boohoo for further comment and here’s what they had to say…
“At boohoo we have a strong commitment against the sale of real fur in any of our products. We have robust policies and procedures in place to ensure that we are able to adhere to this commitment. Boohoo has a team of in-house Quality Assurance experts who are responsible for testing and checking of products to ensure instances such as this don’t occur.
“The product in question was checked for real fur using our own ‘approved’ tests and procedures by our in-house Quality Assurance team. The results of the testing showed that real fur was NOT present in the product. Following the enquiry made by the Humane Society the item has been removed from sale. We uphold our commitment against the sale of real fur in any of our products and continue to investigate the matter internally and with the supplier in question, and we do so as a matter of priority. ”
