Chanel fashion stops using fur, snakeskin

This video says about itself:

The Medan Connection (2011): The grisly truth behind fashion’s reptile skin trade

This shocking report has already been forcing change at the highest levels of Swiss politics. Travelling to Indonesia, it reveals the brutal roots of the world’s luxury reptile skin industry.

“Move over leopard, the star animal print this year is snake!”

For the image-conscious elite, snake-skin handbags come at a price, but not with a conscience. Tracing the supply chain back to its violent origins, it appears even protected reptiles are not safe. In the rudimentary slaughterhouses instant death is not guaranteed and often the snakes are skinned alive. Laws exist to prevent this, but they are easily circumvented. With illegal snake-skin supplying the major fashion houses the industry has a lot of power, which the UN regulating body has failed to control. “Overall the policy makers involved in this trade must accept that there are a range of major problems”.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Chanel makes much use of snakeskin, crocodile leather and fur in the current collections, but according to the company, this is changing. The fashion house will stop using exotic animal skins. How revolutionary is that step by the French fashion house? …

Yet this is a big step for Chanel, says the fashion expert [Aynouk Tan]. “Chanel has always profiled itself with elitist clothing and French chicness, and that they now throw that status overboard indicates that they succumb to pressure by environmental and animal rights organizations.” …

“The pollution and cruelty for animals which elitist fashion brands whitewash by being ‘luxurious and a status symbol’, that may have stopped now.”