Fur Free Alliance Information About Use of Fur Bearing Animals for Fur

Students and Teachers

As a compassionate designer, you can make a real difference for millions of animals.

The Fur Free Alliance is holding our seventh-annual Design Against Fur poster competition! And, for the second successive year - DAF's International Animation Contest.

We invite students and teachers from around the world to participate in this important contest with a conscience:

"Design a creative, compelling poster or flash animation entry that delivers the compassionate message that the wearing of fur is cruel and unnecessary."

We want the modern world to celebrate all animals and not victimize them by killing them to wear their skins. We want you to help us make that happen.

The contest is open to students of fashion, design, fine arts, advertising, marketing, graphic design multi-media, and all other disciplines in colleges around the world.

The poster competition is run across five regions: China, North America (US and Canada), Russia, UK and Ireland (including Eire) and Europe & International (which also includes any countries not already covered by the other regions). Students should enter the competition for the region in which they study. Click on national contacts to find out more about your local participating organisation. If you have any queries please direct them to your national/regional contacts. You will find their contact details by clicking on contacts.

And, we have our separate International Animation Contest. Please click on International Animation Contest for all the information you’ll need to participate in this contest.

Your work will be evaluated by design and marketing experts, and potentially used in national and international campaigns to end the cruel fur trade.

There are cash prizes and all winners and commended students will receive certificates for their portfolios. Winning work will be promoted on a range of national and international websites.

The winners will receive handy cash prizes! The competition will take place in two phases. Winners of the Regional Competitions will go forward to an International Competition. The Grand Prize Winner wins $2,500 US!

In November 2009, the regional winners' posters will be part of a high-profile world-wide-web vote for The People's Choice Award. The poster receiving the most votes wins $1,000 US.

The Message

Convey the concept that the wearing of fur is cruel and unnecessary. How that is done is up to the student. We're giving you the freedom to show us how to reach our target market of young, fashion conscious women, 18-30 years of age with our message.

The Goal

Make fur unfashionable. Convince consumers that killing animals for their fur is a fashion faux pas.

Target Audience

WHO ARE THEY? They are image conscious women aged 18-30 who have a relatively high disposable income which they like to spend on clothes and accessories—often shopping at high-end fashion stores, department stores and designer shops. They are sociable and ambitious and take pride in looking good. They often indulge in the reading of fashion magazines and being very fashion conscious. They always strive to stay in touch with the latest trends.

WHAT DO THEY CURRENTLY THINK? Many consumers naively believe that the fur sold in shops is fake. They're aware of the years of adverse publicity about the wearing of fur. They may even have supported the anti-fur movement or at least paid lip service to it. Now they feel that the fur issue has gone away, that campaigns of the 1980s did their job so the fur must be fake.

Some consumers don't even know they're buying real fur as it's now sheared and dyed and sometimes woven or knitted to look like material and is promoted as a fabric rather than the skins and fur of animals. Sheared and dyed fur is used to make coats and sweaters, and fur trim for collars, cuffs, hats, blankets, scarves, bikinis, purses, shoes and boots.

Others think it is no longer 'fashionable' to be 'anti-fur', and that fur has become acceptable to wear. For example, fashion reporters are stating, "all the celebs and supermodels are wearing it..." Consequently, fur trim and accessories may already be in their wardrobes.

Some consumers simply do not care about the suffering of animals in the production of a fur garment or trim. They're just interested in what the fashion industry tells them is "fashionable".

Background

New manufacturing techniques are producing lighter more flexible furs which have allowed the industry to diversify its product from uniform mink/fur coats to a wide range of fashion items for everyday use that are readily available in any retail store.

The fur industry has revitalized and reinvented itself by using extensive high end advertising in stylish magazines using supermodels like Cindy Crawford, Gisele Bundchen and Elle MacPherson to present a fashionable image. They've cloaked the horrors of the fur trade in respectability.

The fur industry has invested huge sums of money encouraging fashion designers to use fur. Appallingly, over 330 designers, from Chanel to Marc Jacobs, are including fur in their Autumn 2007 ready to wear collections—and where designers lead, the high end fashion stores follow.

Production and manufacturing have moved to China providing vastly reduced costs, and, at the same time, they've taken advantage of the booming economy and belief that "westerners" are leading style setters to China, Russia and Korea to develop huge new markets for a broader range of everyday products.

Style leaders like rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs and well known singer Jennifer Lopez prominently wear fur to promote an image of being in style with no regard to the impact they are directly having on the suffering of animals.

Facts About Fur

Factory farmed fur is cruelty on a mass scale for a frivolous product.
Around the world, one fur-bearing animal dies every second. Over 74 million factory farmed animals including raccoon dogs, foxes, mink, fitches and chinchillas die every year for their fur, merely to satisfy the whims of fashion.
Fur factories subject animals to a life time of suffering and death. Animals spend their entire lives in small, filthy cages, madly pacing back and forth out of stress and boredom. Cannibalism is often the grim reality of this psychological distress. There is no humane slaughter legislation to protect these animals.
The trapping of millions of wild animal around the world entails immense suffering and death. They are caught in the wild with snares, leg hold and conibear traps and endure excruciating pain. Death can take days. In a desperate attempt to escape, many try to chew their limbs off. When the trapper returns, the animal will be shot or clubbed to death if they are still alive. Others die of infection or become prey to other animals. Snares, leghold and conibear traps are indiscriminate and often non-targeted animals are caught and deemed as "trash", even though they may be members of endangered species.
Two million dogs and cats meet an agonizing and painful death to have their pelts turned into full length coats, fur trim and cheap trinkets in just China alone.
Fur factories subject animals to a lifetime of suffering and death. Animals spend their entire lives in small, filthy wire mesh cages, madly pacing back and forth out of stress and boredom.
There is no humane slaughter legislation to protect these animals. They are killed by cruel methods that preserve the pelt, such as gassing, neck breaking, clubbing and anal electrocution.
Fur is not a by-product of the meat industry (as with leather)—it is factory farmed and/or trapped purely for fashion. Often a number of animals (e.g. 60 - 80 mink) are killed to make one garment.
Fur trim is not the 'leftovers' from making full length fur coats: more animals are killed to make fur trim than for full-length fur coats. This is because there is a larger market for fur collars than fur coats.
China's fur farms now produce 80% of the world's fur pelts. As there are no animal welfare laws in China, foreign and national investigators have documented unimaginable acts of cruelty to animals.
Furthermore, contrary to the deceitful claims of the fur industry, fur is not an eco-friendly or a “green” product. The fur industry relies on the heavy use of toxic caustic acids to treat pelts which would otherwise rot as fur garments and the concentrated agricultural waste from fur factories can damage the environment.