Rihanna is a total badass, but we don’t always agree with her fashion choices. Let’s be honest: It’s pretty difficult to look rad when you have the skin of a dead animal on you—even for fierce Bad Girl RiRi.
The singer decided to wear a fur jacket to a recent Dior runway show. Fans, who normally praise her for slaying on her tracks, got work, work, worked up over the outfit and flooded social media with complaints about the fashion faux—or better yet, fur—pas.
Is she fur real? Rihanna makes a bold choice as she leads glam parade at Dior Cruise Collection show in LA https://t.co/v6aeEXrjlO pic.twitter.com/oW5Tcq7gPK
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) May 12, 2017
Can Rihanna stop wearing fur so I can finally give her my soul without feeling guilty
— iz (@vuIgaire) May 12, 2017
y'all call rihanna a fashion icon but she literally wears fur every single day. that's so ugly.
— mir ? (@dontyouletitgos) May 12, 2017
@rihanna stop wearing fur. Thanks. Sincerely, all the animals you killed by supporting the fur industry.
— Rebecca (@rel3ver) May 15, 2017
PETA received the SOS and rushed the Barbadian beauty a special gift: a stunning faux-fur coat that she can work at future glam fashion and red-carpet events.
In an accompanying letter, we encouraged her to ditch her fur clothes and accessories and consider donating them to PETA, which sends unwanted furs to homeless shelters and refugee camps around the world.
Behind every fur item is an animal who endured incredible pain and suffering.
Animals on fur farms—such as foxes, rabbits, chinchillas, and minks—often spend their whole lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages. Fur farmers use the cheapest, cruelest killing methods available, which means that animals may be suffocated, electrocuted, gassed, or poisoned. Animals trapped in the wild have it no better and are often caught with steel-jaw traps—which slam shut on their legs, often cutting into the bone—and can suffer for days from blood loss, dehydration, shock, frostbite, and attacks by predators.
Humans suffer because of fur production, too. In the U.S. alone, fur farms are directly responsible for tossing nearly 1,000 tons of phosphorous into our rivers and streams each year. The toxic cocktail of chemicals used to preserve animal skins is hazardous to workers and the surrounding environment.
You can slay in an outfit that didn’t involve actually slaying any animal.
Wearing fur isn’t glam, which is why a long list of celebrities are now fur-free, including Jhené Aiko, Taraji P. Henson, Eva Mendes, and even First Lady Melania Trump. Parsons School of Design, the leading fashion design university in the country, also recently cut ties with the fur industry. With so many beautiful and warm faux options available today, we can all make fashion choices that look utterly fierce while still practicing compassion for all animals.
Pledge to Be Fur-Free!
Fill out the form below and pledge to go fur-free and to choose compassionate fashions instead!