Fashion house PKZ goes fur-free
The Swiss fashion house will be fur-free from spring 2021. Despite the long lead time, animal welfare advocates are pleased.
As part of its campaign «Real Fur – Real Cruelty», Zürich Animal Protection has been advising Swiss fashion houses on gradually phasing out real fur since 2014. Now PKZ, another renowned fashion house, is drawing a line under animal cruelty.
Zürich Animal Protection is highly pleased with PKZ’s consistent move towards greater animal welfare. In November 2014, Zürich Animal Protection criticised Swiss fashion houses for selling fur items that involved animal cruelty and often had serious labelling deficiencies — including PKZ. Patron Olivier Burger responded promptly by giving up real fur in the in-house brands «Paul» and «Paul Kehl», laying the foundation for a partnership on equal terms.
China and Russia removed from the product range
At the end of 2015, CEO Manuela Beer, a proactive leader, took over the management of PKZ. She pursued a quality strategy with controlled sourcing, and from the autumn/winter season 2016/2017 onwards she eliminated all fur items from China and Russia entirely while expanding the fur-free range.
Real fur is processed with the animal’s hide attached. If leather becomes visible when the hairs are pulled apart, it is genuine animal fur. Faux fur, on the other hand, reveals a textile backing at the base. 
Burnt faux fur smells synthetic and melts into clumps. Real fur smells like burnt hair when set alight. 
If you gently blow across the fur, the guard hairs of real fur will part to the side, usually revealing slightly crimped, fine underfur beneath. Artificial fur is stiffer, often cut to a uniform length, and slightly sticky due to static charge.
Awareness of animal welfare grows through dialogue
Open discussions with Ms. Beer began in the summer of 2017. Campaign director Nadja Brodmann from the Zurich Animal Protection Organization explained the suffering of fur animals in European breeding farms as well: cramped cages with wire mesh floors, no possibility to retreat, apathy and behavioral disorders due to lack of stimulation. However, PKZ cited social obligations, arguing that it would not be possible to drop high-revenue fur brands overnight. The Zurich Animal Protection Organization proposed a gradual reduction of the genuine fur range.
No more purchases of fur from cage farming starting in 2019
In the summer of 2019, PKZ announced that no more fur articles from cage farming had been purchased: for the 2019/2020 season, only outdoor jackets with genuine fur from wild-caught animals had been ordered. From an animal welfare perspective, this was a major step forward. At least these coyotes had been able to live in freedom, suffering only at the end in brutal traps. Fur animals on breeding farms, on the other hand, suffer their entire lives until an equally cruel death.
Clear commitment to phasing out genuine fur by 2021
In joint, open discussions with the Zurich Animal Protection Organization, CEO Beer worked out a mutually satisfactory solution in December 2019: «In 2020 we will only sell off the selectively supplemented stock of outdoor jackets with genuine fur, and by spring 2021 we will be fur-free. We are committed to quality and sustainability for our loyal customers.» Brodmann is delighted with the outcome: «This is the ultimate result of several years of constructive collaboration. PKZ thus joins the list of fur-free fashion houses such as Globus, Jelmoli, and Modissa, and increases the pressure on those who fail to read the signs of the times.»
