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Fashion Giant Prada Has Banned Using Kangaroos For Its Leather
Featured Image Credit: PA
Fashion giant Prada has announced it will stop using kangaroo skin to make its leather products.
Buyers, particularly in Italy, prefer using kangaroo compared to cows or goats because it's stronger.
Animal rights organisation LAV has been leading the charge to get the animal taken off the list and Prada has finally listened.
In a statement on its website, LAV wrote: "After Diadora and Versace, the PRADA GROUP (PRADA, MIU MIU, CHURCH'S, CAR SHOE) also responded to our appeal to stop the use of kangaroo leather.
"In a note, the company stated that the Prada Group no longer plans to purchase new kangaroo hides and confirms the non-use of this material in the collections for over a year."
LAV and PETA have been calling for brands like Prada to switch to vegan alternatives, especially after the devastating bushfires in Australia saw billions of animals wiped. Around 2.3 million kangaroos are killed in Australia every year for commercial purposes.
The @Prada Group is now kangaroo-free: the company announced it publicly! After Diadora and Versace, who recently decided to go kangaroo-free, this is another extraordinary result of our #savekangaroos campaign.
- LAV (@LAVonlus) August 10, 2020
We won't stop until all kangaroos are safe!https://t.co/nQKMFseXAC
The organisations say the animals shouldn't be treated this way and deserve respect.
PETA director of corporate projects Yvonne Taylor said: "Behind every accessory made with kangaroo leather or other exotic skins is a sentient animal who died a horrifying death. Prada Group's decision will spare kangaroos immense suffering - and PETA calls on the company to extend its compassion to all exotic animals."
Prada's announcement follows the same decision made by Versace earlier this year.
LAV spokesperson Simone Pavesi said: "We have been corresponding with Versace over email and they confirmed that in 2019 they stopped using kangaroo skin.
"We welcome this as a sign of responsibility, today more than ever. The fires that are devastating Australia add to the massacres of hunting, with dramatic consequences for the kangaroo population."
"We showed the companies images and videos of how kangaroos are killed in such a brutal way. They understood the gravity of the situation and perhaps preferred not to give too much prominence to the fact that they were using kangaroo skin."
Versace told the Guardian that they had no statement to make on the matter, except for confirming it had stopped 'the use of kangaroo leather starting from the 2019 collections'.
The Italian company committed to stopping the use of real fur in 2018, with figurehead Donatella Versace saying it wasn't her style anymore.
"Fur? I am out of that. I don't want to kill animals to make fashion. It doesn't feel right," she told the Economist's 1843 magazine.
