The grassroots strikes again!
Milan Fashion Week just lost its third major sponsor in the span of three months over its refusal to ban fur on the runway. Visa Inc. a company worth 40 billion dollars, waved the white flag after just seven days of consistent actions by the grassroots anti-fur movement. The goal was to convince the company to boycott its partner Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI) over its continued allowance of fur on the runway of Milan Fashion Week.
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We launched the campaign on April 7th with a rowdy demo at the Visa headquarters in London. Over 40 activists occupied the lobby, jumped over turnstiles, and even took turns playing on the company foosball table.
That same week, activists in Munich, Germany, and in Atlanta, New York City, and Miami hit the streets to demand that Visa stop partnering with one of the last remaining supporters of fur.
After three days of consistent demonstrations at Visa’s London offices, with executives refusing to respond to CAFT’s request for a meeting, activists grew tired of being ignored. Animals on fur farms suffer and die every day in unimaginable ways, while the luxury fashion industry kills them with pleasure for profit and vanity. Their liberation is urgent. With that urgency in mind, activists decided to organize protests at the one place they knew they couldn’t be ignored: Visa employees’ homes.
In the span of 48 hours, Visa employees in San Francisco, London, New York City, Massachusetts, and New Jersey were greeted outside their homes by anti-fur activists demanding answers. Reports began flowing in to CAFT of all the actions taking place.
In San Francisco, a band of activists kicked off the home demos on a Friday, signaling what was to come that weekend. In London, over 40 activists demonstrated outside a director’s home; meanwhile, chalk and fake blood were used on the public sidewalk outside another executive’s home in a different part of town. In NYC, activists knocked on the door of a Visa executive to ask when the company would cut ties with fur and protested outside, raising awareness about Visa’s complicity in supporting the fur trade. In Massachusetts, activists began their protest just as the Visa employee was pulling into her driveway — just in time to hear the megaphones, whistles, and speak-outs. Finally, in New Jersey, activists protested a director’s home on Sunday calling for a boycott against Milan Fashion Week. Unsurprisingly, an unhinged, angry male neighbor chose to knock down a small, female activist to the ground—they always go for the small ones! Activists were undeterred and finish the demo after the irate neighbor left the scene.
It’s a good thing Visa sent CAFT that email, because more cities were itching to get involved to defend animals from soulless corporate sponsors.
The luxury fashion industry at large has turned its back on fur: CAFT has made sure of that. Thanks to our campaigns and the relentless activists that take action, all major fashion publications no longer promote fur, almost all retailers and luxury designers have stopped using fur, one of the largest e-commerce websites, Etsy, no longer sells it, and two of the “Big Four” fashion weeks in London and New York have a fur-free policy.
On Monday, April 13th, Carlo Capasa, President of CNMI, was disrupted four times during a panel discussion at the European Designer Fashion Summit in Barcelona. Red in the face and irate, he repeatedly called the protesters “liars” and “violent” for speaking up for animals suffering on fur farms. Yet his complicity in keeping this industry alive, and normalizing it as luxury fashion, is insidious and far more harmful than having a protester shout at him during an event.
He was uncomfortable for one hour. Animals on fur farms are uncomfortable from the moment they are born and trapped in tiny, barren cages until the moment of their death by brutal means such as neck-breaking, gassing, and anal electrocution. They never know a moment of comfort or peace.
If Mr. Capasa thinks he can wait out this campaign, we have news for him: once we start a campaign, we do not stop until we see it through. We are not motivated by money, fame, or industry connections. The only thing that motivates us is ending an unjust industry that tortures animals for vanity.
In the end, Wella, DHL, and Visa decided it was simply not worth it to deal with Milan Fashion Week and its irresponsible choices. How many more sponsors must CNMI lose before it announces a fur-free policy?
A message to Milan Fashion Week from CAFT’s Executive Director, Suzie Stork:
We are gearing up for the next phase of this campaign and we need your support to make it happen. In the next few days, we will launch another sponsor campaign. We need to keep the pressure on Milan Fashion Week’s decision makers while the momentum is on our side. Even a small monthly donation keeps us in the fight. And right now, every dollar you give will be matched, doubling your impact. Help us finish the job so that fur-bearing animals stop being killed for Milan’s runways.
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