Pink believes one of the best ways to make sure fur isn’t in vogue is to make sure it isn’t in Vogue. The singer has written to Anna Wintour, asking the famously fur-wearing editor to stop promoting fur in her trendsetting magazine.
Pink’s handwritten note, faxed Tuesday afternoon, urges Wintour to “modernize your magazine and stop promoting fur.” If that isn’t possible, Pink asks that Vogue at least allow organizations such as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to run anti-fur ads for balance.
The singer also writes that “many designers, unaware of my respect for animals, have sent me fur in every shade of pink. I would like to say I’ve always been fur-free. Unfortunately, I went through a selfish phase and wore fur on a couple of occasions. I’ve since learned how animals are trapped, drowned and even beaten to death in the woods and in streams, and hideously electrocuted and strangled on fur farms, and I wouldn’t be seen dead in the stuff. If your readers knew the horrors that these animals go through to supply a hairy swath of skin, coated with chemicals to stop it from decomposing, they would gag. Won’t you use your unique position to help fashion evolve rather than rot?”
This is not the first time Pink has allied herself with PETA’s anti-fur campaign. Last year the singer posed in a poster celebrating New York club Centro-Fly’s fur-free policy. She replaced Britney Spears, who pulled out of the campaign once media reports suggested she would be posing nude, Ã la PETA’s “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign.
While Pink’s letter urged Vogue to follow fashion’s cue and “change with the times,” PETA’s decade-plus campaign against the magazine has become more fashionable as well. During PETA’s initial campaigns, which employed guerrilla tactics, Kate Pierson of the B-52’s was arrested for storming the magazine’s offices in 1993.
Wintour herself was often a PETA target. Her visage was used in unflattering campaigns with slogans like “Fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people,” designed to portray her as a real-life Cruella de Vil. An animal-rights activist once dumped a dead raccoon on her plate while she ate lunch at the Four Seasons in Manhattan.
Based on those actions, Vogue began rejecting PETA ads sight unseen. Since then, the group has tried for relatively tamer anti-fur campaigns, such as sponsoring its own runway shows with fashions of fur-free designers, instead of disrupting others.
Activists still splatter fake blood and throw tofu cream pies at the doors of Vogue’s offices, but a more common tactic now is to jam the magazine’s phone lines on the day of ad sales closings.
A spokesperson for Vogue had no comment on Pink’s letter.
