Fashion Trivia: The Rabbit Revolution

A little Easter-meets-Earth Month throwback.

Test your fashion-industry knowledge with our new-old weekly series, Fashion Trivia! There’s no prize (yet) for having the right answer, but you get theoretical bonus points for not using Google.

Q: Once a thriving global industry, angora fur products have all but disappeared from the mainstream apparel market in just the last 10 years. Who or what was responsible for saving the adorable, fluffy angora rabbit community from a lifetime spent providing fur to fashion brands?

Scroll down for the answer...

A: PETA.

Though at times controversial (and frequently scoffed at by corporations), the animal rights nonprofit's tactics were exceptionally successful when it came to tackling the angora fur trade. Even big fashion companies, still famous for choosing profits over ethics, had no choice but to pay attention.

In 2013, the organization released a truly horrifying video exposing the unethical ways in which rabbits were harvested for fur (tied down, screaming in pain as their hair was ripped out) and then neglected. H&M and Acne were among the first brands to immediately halt production of angora products after seeing the video. Over the next couple of years, most well-known western fashion brands followed suit. In China, where most angora was being produced, exports of angora rabbit wool reportedly plummeted from $23 million in 2010 to $4.3 million in 2015.

"Look at what PETA did to angora," an anonymous fashion executive was quoted saying in 2016. "They virtually wiped it out."

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