The Council of Fashion Designers of America has announced that New York Fashion Week will no longer promote fur at any official schedule events, on social media channels, or on its website starting in September 2026. The landmark decision represents a massive victory in the global movement to end the fur trade, achieved through positive dialogue between Humane World for Animals and the council that owns and organizes the Fashion Calendar. New York Fashion Week joins a growing list of fashion industry leaders rejecting animal cruelty, following Condé Nast’s recent public fur-free policy announcement just last month. An estimated 20 million animals are still killed every year solely for their fur on factory farms where mink, foxes, raccoon dogs and other animals suffer in tiny cages before being killed by poison gas or electrocution.
Research shows that the environmental damage from raising animals for fur significantly exceeds the impacts of other materials used in fashion, including cotton, polyester and even acrylic used to make faux fur, with the carbon footprint of fur production far worse than alternatives. These fur farms have also become sites of COVID-19 and highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks, creating serious public health risks beyond the inherent cruelty. Since California passed a fur sales ban in 2019, New York has become the largest fur-selling state in the country, making this fashion week decision particularly significant. Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal is now seeking to follow California’s lead with legislation to prohibit the sale of new fur products in New York, supported by a recent study showing overwhelming support from New York residents for such a ban.
