Animal rights organisation PETA has taken a stake in French luxury house LVMH as it steps up its fight against the luxury industry’s use of exotic animal skins.
The move, which will follows similar action by PETA at Hermes and Prada, will give the organisation access to the shareholder meetings of LVMH, owner of brands including Louis Vuitton and Dior.
It illustrates the increasing pressure on luxury firms to show that they are ethical.
A statement from PETA said:
In the wake of an exposé revealing that reptiles on crocodile farms in Vietnam — including two that have supplied skins to a tannery owned by Louis Vuitton’s parent company, LVMH — are confined to tiny pits and sometimes hacked into while they’re still alive and thrashing, PETA has become a shareholder of LVMH on the Euronext Paris to put pressure on the company to stop selling exotic skins merchandise.