The price of beauty: murder
Animal rights activists urging Kyiv residents to stop wearing furs
A couple of weeks ago Kyiv’s animal rights activists staged a rally in front of the Sports Palace under the slogan “Animals Don’t Wear Others’ Furs, or Manka’s Tears.” Their action was another attempt to halt the development of the fur industry in Ukraine. An earlier rally took place in Kyiv last December.
At the three-day fur show that opened on Feb. 4 at the Kyiv Sports Palace, animal rights activists told every potential buyer (mostly women) about the real cost of a fur coat: each requires the slaughtering of 40 to 80 sables, 20 foxes, 20 beavers, 55 minks, 18 dogs, or 30 rex rabbits. The picketers were young people between the ages of 20 and 30, and they did not spare any morbid details of how the animals are killed to provide furs for fashionable women.
The picketers’ posters were also graphically eloquent. One of them was a photograph of a sad-eyed seal pup destined to live for only 12 days before being killed for the sake of people’s enrichment. There was also an exhibit of children’s drawings, showing boys and girls asking their parents not to kill a hare, fox, or squirrel, the heroes of the many fairytales that they have heard. Nastia Shkurenko, the organizer of the rally, said that there is an alternative to natural furs: modern synthetic materials that match natural furs. They are warm, more practical, and easier to buy. Synthetic fur is available as Syntepon, HoloFibre, Spunbond, and synthetic fiber wadding.
A number of European countries, including the UK, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, and Italy, have declared a total or partial ban on fur ranching. Trapping is banned in all countries except Russia, US, and Canada. Belgium has banned all imports and the processing and sale of seal pelts.
Famous designers, like Stella McCartney, Calvin Klein, Vivienne Westwood, Kenneth Cole, and Ralph Lauren have refused to design fur clothing. Some designers have announced they will no longer use them in their collections: J. Crew, Calvin Klein, Mango and Zara, Prada, Guess, TopShop, Polo Ralph Lauren, —&A, Peek & Cloppenburg, Kleider Bauer, Burton, Clerys Department Store (Ireland), Castro (Israel), Charmone, and others.
Perhaps the time has come for us in Ukraine to consider whether a fur coat is worth the suffering and death of our “smaller brothers.” Which of Ukraine’s stars will be the first to refuse to wear natural fur?
