PETA claims victory, ends 30-year ad campaign against fur

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is killing its most celebrated anti-fur campaign. Their reasoning? It worked.

Thirty years after kicking off its “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” initiative, the animal rights group is putting the ad campaign out to pasture.

“Nearly every top designer has shed fur, California has banned it, Queen Elizabeth II has renounced it, Macy’s is closing its fur salons, and now, the largest fur auction house in North America has filed for bankruptcy,” PETA senior vice president and ad creator Dan Mathews said in a statement on the organization’s web page. “With fur in a downward spiral, PETA will expand our efforts to expose the violent leather and wool trades.”

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The announcement comes at the outset of New York Fashion Week.

PETA launched the campaign with pop group The Go-Go’s posing naked behind a red and gold banner reading “We’d Rather Go-Go Naked Than Wear Fur!” in 1990. The banner featured the PETA logo.

In the decades that followed, models Christy Turlington, Tyra Banks and Pamela Anderson participated in ads. Showbiz personalities Taraji P. Henson, Wendy Williams, Gillian Anderson and Kim Basinger also got in on the act. The campaign became a family affair for Basinger in 2018 when her daughter Ireland Baldwin stripped down for the cause.