Prada, Gucci, Chanel source cashmere from farms that abuse goats, says PETA

Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Burberry are among the luxury brands that source their cashmere from farms that abuse goats, PETA has said. Disturbing undercover footage released by PETA shows how farm workers pinned down goats to rip out their hair as the animals screamed in pain, castrated them without pain medication and bashed their heads with hammers to kill them once they were no longer considered productive.

Between April 2022 and February 2023, PETA Asia went undercover at cashmere farm operations in Mongolia – including one that has ties with companies like Naadam, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Prada, Gucci, Hermès, Chanel, Burberry, and Bottega Veneta.
What PETA discovered at these operations was shocking – for example, goats were tied up as workers pulled their hair out with sharp metal combs at Khanbogd Cashmere’s facility in Mongolia. “Hand-combing is done only to make money, since cashmere goats would shed their coats naturally,” PETA noted, adding that it found bits of skin pulled out along with cashmere.

Goats were left to suffer from bleeding wounds for days – some died due to cold and extreme hunger, others from being left untreated.

PETA also alleged that “a worker used an unsterilized knife to cut open goats’ scrotums and pulled out kids’ testicles with his bare hands and without pain relief.”

“If people are buying cashmere, it is absolutely a product of cruelty,” said PETA spokeswoman Ashley Byrne to The New York Post. “We’ve done other investigations in the past exposing cashmere, but this may be the first time that we are implicating some of the brands that we know are sourcing from Khanbogd Cashmere,” Byrne added, “which obviously is a big operation if it’s sourcing these big fashion houses.”