The PETA association, which fights against animal exploitation, has launched a shock campaign with a fake online store of clothing made from fake human remains. A relevant message? Not sure…
The PETA association does not cut corners when it comes to combating animal exploitation. A campaign, relayed by the New York Post, unveils a fake online store, hosted by the brand Urban Outfitters, where you can do your shopping and choose clothes made from human remains. Of course, this is all fictitious. The idea of PETA? Point out the brands that continue to use the skins and furs of animals to create clothing or even leather accessories.
“A cow’s skin belongs to her, and she feels fear and pain in a slaughterhouse just as much as you or I would”PETA vice president Tracy Reiman told the New York Post. “This campaign encourages people to see the individual behind every piece of animal skin used to make clothes, accessories”, she adds. Of course, the items featured on the Urban Outfitters online store are not for sale. Moreover, they do not exist since they are digital creations.
A “fictitious” campaign for PETA, but facts that actually took place
If the idea of PETA was to shock by imagining an alternate reality, where the human body would be exploited like that of animals, it is important to remember that such barbaric acts have indeed taken place in the past. In 2020, the Auschwitz Memorial inherited two photo albums, probably created from the skin of prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp, during World War II. These objects were donated to the museum by a visitor who discovered them in an antique market. “According to testimonies from prisoners at the Buchenwald concentration camp, human skin was used in the camp to create several everyday objects, such as book bindings and wallets.”, had informed the museum on its Twitter account.
By the way, in the 19th century it was common to see books made from the skin of women. In the archives of the Bibliohtèque Nationale de France, for example, an article from Stationery newsletter, a Parisian review published in 1898, evoked two volumes of Mysteries of Paris by Eugène Sue. “This binding comes from the skin of a woman and was worked by Mr. Albéric Poutouille, 1874, who attests that this binding is indeed a human skin”, can we read. This practice was far from being an isolated case at the time and even represented, for some, the latest cry. In 1809, Mary Bateman, an Englishwoman accused of murder and witchcraft, was hanged in York. After it was dissected, its skin was sold and served as the binding for two books: Hurt of Sedition by Sir John Cheeke and Arcadian Princess by Richard Braithwaite, reports the book Executing Magic in the Modern Era: Criminal Bodies and the Gallows in Popular Medecine, signed Owen Davies and Francesca Matteoni.
The PETA campaign is definitely not fictitious since, in the past, many people discriminated against, victims of sexist and / or anti-Semitic acts, have unfortunately suffered the same fate as animals.
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