Today marks the start of London Fashion Week 2019. After last year’s phenomenal success as the first ever fur-free London Fashion Week, and given the recent big names who have joined the Fur Free Alliance - can we expect to see the same results from this year’s London Fashion Week?

This week has seen some incredible wins for fur-free fashion! Islington Council has banned fur – the first London council to do so which sets a powerful example that hopefully other London councils will soon follow. But, Islington is not alone in its move, last year Oldham became the first UK council to ban fur. Internationally, California’s proposed fur ban also passed its final vote! This means that once passed, this legislation will outlaw new items made from the fur of undomesticated animals including mink, rabbit and coyote throughout the third largest state in the USA.

Back in 2003, fur farms were banned in the UK, however as a country, this cruel industry is still being supported by the importing of real fur into the UK. We have been working as part of the coalition #FurFreeBritain to ban the sale of fur in the UK once and for all, and last year we joined Queen guitarist Brian May and a number of other animal protection organisations to hand in more than 400,000 signatures from people who support this ban.

As a partner of Fur Free Alliance, we are pleased to see they have launched a 'Fur Free Retailer' initiative which comprises an extensive list (separated by country) of every company that has made the commitment to go fur-free.

So, the remaining question is, will this year’s London Fashion Week be fur-free? The retail and public sectors are both firmly taking a stand against this cruel industry and we hope that designers taking part this year will follow 2018’s leading example and leave fur products off the catwalk.