Moments ago, a PETA supporter stormed the Coach fashion show at the James B. Duke House brandishing a sign proclaiming, “Coach: Let Cows Live,” before being marched out by security. The disruption is the latest salvo in PETA’s campaign to compel Coach and other designers to end their rampant, irresponsible use of planet- and animal-killing leather. Video of the disruption can be viewed here.

Credit @joannanikasnyc and The Cut

“Every time Coach sends leather down the runway, it’s committing a massive faux pas in the eyes of anyone who cares about cows and the climate catastrophe,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on the brand to lose the leather and urging consumers to refuse to swipe their card for anything made of an animal’s sliced-off skin.”

At slaughterhouses, cows killed for leather may be skinned and dismembered while they’re still conscious—after they endure castration, tail-docking, and dehorning, without any painkillers, on farms. A PETA exposé of the world’s largest leather processor—which has supplied Coach—showed workers branding calves on the face, beating cows and bulls, and shocking them with electric prods.

In addition to the horrific cruelty it inflicts on animals, the leather industry also contributes to the climate catastrophe, land devastation, pollution, and water contamination. Sustainable vegan leather made from apples, cork, corn, grapes, mushrooms, paper, pineapples, soy, or tea mimics the properties of leather without the cruelty to animals or environmental devastation.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.