HOW TO WEAR
VEGAN

Millions of cows, pigs, sheep, goats, and other animals are slaughtered for their skin every year. They're castrated, branded, and dehorned, and their tails are docked—all without pain relief. Then they're trucked to slaughter, bled to death, and skinned.

Sheep shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, which encourages fast work without regard for the welfare of the animals. Shearers have been caught on video punching, kicking, and cutting sheep as they hastily shear their wool. Much of the world's wool comes from Australia, where millions of sheep undergo "mulesing," in which workers use tools resembling gardening shears to cut big chunks of skin and flesh from the backsides of sheep—often without painkillers.

Animals on fur farms spend their entire lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages. Fur farmers often use the cheapest killing methods available, and animals are suffocated, electrocuted, gassed, or poisoned before their skin is torn from their body. Animals trapped in their natural habitats for fur can suffer for days before eventually dying of blood loss, dehydration, frostbite, gangrene, or attacks by predators.

Angora rabbits scream and kick in panic as farmers violently tear the fur from their sensitive skin. And it doesn't end there—rabbits endure this nightmare every three months.

Workers tear feathers from geese and ducks while they're still alive or after slaughter. Birds shriek in pain and terror as workers hold them down and tear out their feathers. Workers often pluck them so hard that their skin rips open, leaving gaping wounds that workers crudely stitch back together—all without any painkillers.

Shearling, which is used to line UGG boots, is a lamb or sheep's skin with the wool still attached.

Investigators have documented that goats are pinned to the floor with their legs tied together as workers use shears or large clippers to remove their hair as quickly as possible. Workers commonly remove kids' horns at the age of 1 or 2 weeks, typically by burning them off with a hot iron or caustic chemical paste, sometimes resulting in severe burns or blindness. Males endure painful testicle removal using rubber rings, all without pain relief.

Much of the world's mohair comes from South Africa, where an investigator revealed that workers dragged, roughly handled, and mutilated fully conscious angora goats on farms. Shearers are paid by volume, not by the hour, which motivates them to shear goats quickly and carelessly, leaving the terrified animals cut up and bleeding. Robbed of their natural insulation after shearing, many goats die of exposure to cold wind and rain. Angora goats endure the stressful shearing process for five or six years, and most of the surviving goats in South Africa are sold for crude backyard slaughter.

"Exotic" animals such as alligators and crocodiles are farmed for their skin and meat. To kill them, workers commonly hack into their necks and scramble their brains with metal rods, sometimes leaving them conscious and in agony for minutes after they're skinned. Two or three crocodiles are skinned to make one handbag.

Ostriches are often killed when they're just 1 year old so that their skin can be used to make handbags and their feathers can be used as accessories. Workers have been caught striking ostriches during transport and forcing terrified birds into stun boxes, causing many to slip and fall. The young ostriches are stunned and their throats are cut before workers tear feathers from their still-warm bodies and skin them.

Silk is the fiber that silkworms weave to make cocoons. While the worms are in the metamorphosis process to become moths, workers steam or gas them to death in their cocoons. Roughly 3,000 animals are killed for each pound of silk.