Major fashion retailers have promised to cease selling mohair products after an explicit expose released by PETA showed South African farmers violently mistreating animals.
Marks & Spencer, Next, Fat Face, Primark, Topshop, Gap, H&M and Zara have all pledged to stop selling mohair fabric, which is made from the hair of Angora goats.
This follows the release of undercover footage from animal rights organisation PETA, which shows mohair farmers mutilating, violently handling and breaking the necks of the animals as they shear them.
[WARNING: The video below contains distressing footage]
PETA’s investigation covered 12 farms across South Africa but it is unclear whether any of the retailers who have responded to the video use them in their supply chain.
More than half of the world’s supply is understood to come from South African farms.
A spokeswoman for M&S said: “We have a very small volume of mohair fibre in some of our products.
“However, we recognise that the traceability of the mohair fibre back to farm is currently a challenge and we do not have the level of assurances that we would like to ensure the welfare of these animals is being upheld.
“Therefore, until we can trace the fibre back to farm source and verify the appropriate levels of animal welfare, we will eliminate mohair containing products from all our stores and website by March 2019.”
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Meanwhile, H&M pledged to remove mohair from their range by 2020.
“For us, it is of utmost importance that animals are treated well and we have therefore decided to permanently ban mohair,” it said.
“We have been in close dialogue with Peta for several years and fully agree with them on this matter. We will now look into what other alternative materials we can offer our customers.”
An Arcadia spokesperson said the company was “concerned” to learn of the footage, and that it has “committed to stop sourcing any new goods containing mohair”.
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