Respect for Animals is part of the Fur Free Alliance campaign urging Italian fashion giant Max Mara to join its competitors—including Gucci, Versace, Armani, Prada, Valentino, Dolce & Gabbana and many others—in adopting a fur-free policy.

The campaign features action during fashion weeks in New York City, London, Milan, and Paris. With the reach of the Fur Free Alliance, a coalition of 50 animal protection organizations in 35 countries, the Max Mara campaign will likely be the largest corporate anti-fur campaign of all time, leading to tens of thousands of emails, calls, and social media posts.

In September 2018, the Fur Free Alliance asked its supporters worldwide to contact Prada to go fur-free, and the Italian luxury brand heard the calls and went fur-free the following year, responding to the shift in stakeholder values. The Fur Free Alliance also worked with Gucci, Armani, Hugo Boss and many others to announce fur-free policies. Today, over 1500 brands and retailers have pledged to go fur-free by joining the Fur Free Retailer Program.

Write an email to Max Mara to let them know you care for animals and want them to go fur-free! Follow up by leaving a comment on Max Mara’s social channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn).

The global campaign is targeting flagship brand Max Mara, as well as the Max Mara Fashion Group as a whole, including all the group’s brands that are still using animal fur, such as Marina Rinaldi, SportMax and many others. Currently, you can find products like mink gloves, fox fur cuffs, raccoon dog charm or fur trimmed hoods in Max Mara’s assortment.

On fur factory farms, wild animals spend their entire lives in wire-bottom cages, deprived of the ability to engage in natural behaviours—only to be killed by gassing or anal-electrocution. In the wild, animals are held in traps for days without food or water until trappers come to retrieve them, often gnawing off their own limb first in a desperate attempt to escape.

Fur production is also environmentally devastating. Fur factory farms and tanneries are extremely harmful to our soil and waterways—pumping waste and the toxic chemicals into the surrounding environment. And the traps responsible for killing wild animals are indiscriminate, often maiming and killing non-target animals, like endangered species and people’s pets. All told, the fur industry is an environmental nightmare.

Now that the majority of consumers want nothing to do with the fur trade, major fashion brands have responded by announcing policies prohibiting the use of fur. Twenty countries throughout Europe have banned fur production because of animal cruelty and risks to the environment and public health. As well, Israel, California and 14 cities across the U.S. have banned fur sales to create a more humane marketplace and drive innovation.