TORONTO -- After three decades, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has ended its iconic “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign, in which famous celebrities were photographed in the buff to oppose the use of fur in fashion.
In a statement Tuesday, the animal rights organization announced they were “celebrating the demise of the fur trade” and therefore concluding the advertisements, which saw stars such as Pink, Gillian Anderson, Eva Mendes, and The Go-Go’s pose nude in various campaigns since the 1990s.
“Nearly every top designer has shed fur, California has banned it, Queen Elizabeth II has renounced it, Macy’s is closing its fur salons, and now, the largest fur auction house in North America has filed for bankruptcy,” PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews, who conceived the “naked” campaign, said in a press release.
With the fur trade in decline, Mathews said the activist group would be concentrating their efforts on exposing the “violent leather and wool trades.”
Additionally, PETA activists said they will continue to target the use of fur in the fashion world in “different ways,” including their ongoing protests against the company Canada Goose for using wild coyote fur to trim the hoods of their famous parkas.
The group also said they may decide to use naked celebrities in future campaigns, such as their one targeting the leather industry with the tagline “I’d Rather Bare Skin Than Wear Skin.”
