Moda Operandi confirms ban on fur and exotic skins

Moda Operandi, the e-commerce platform credited with digitizing the trunk show shopping experience, has agreed to stop selling and sourcing exotic skins and furs. The announcement came in a statement released on Monday by PETA, the animal rights activist organization, which says that the luxury fashion retailer confirmed its position to the nonprofit after PETA shared information about how animals suffer prior to being slain for fashion purposes.

“Exotic skins and fur belong on the animals born with them, not on collars or clutches,” PETA Executive Vice President, Tracy Reiman, commented in the announcement.

PETA claims on its website that snakes are nailed to trees to facilitate their skin removal and due to their low metabolism it takes hours for them to die during the agonizing process. The organization recounts mutilation endured by lizards and the cramped, unsanitary conditions that farmed alligators and animals used for fur must fester in before their ultimate demise. PETA notes importantly that there are few laws to protect reptiles and that they are even excluded from the Animal Welfare Act, the only federal law in the United States that “regulates the treatment of animals in research, teaching, testing, exhibition, transport, and by dealers,” according to the US Department of Agriculture.

PETA maintains a list of fashion brands on its website that have committed to similar bans on furs and exotics including Dries Van Noten, Calvin Klein, Chanel, Nike, Nordstrom, Selfridges, among others.

Moda Operandi was founded in 2010 by fashion editor Lauren Santo Domingo with the goal of giving consumers the opportunity to buy all of the most creative looks featured on the runways that other retailers do not end up bringing to the sales floor. Moda Operandi carries ready-to-wear, couture, accessories, fine jewelry, and home décor and ships to 125 countries, with physical showrooms in New York, London, and Hong Kong.