London Fashion Week starts this week! It has long been regarded as one of the pioneering and defining events of the fashion world. Spawning countless trends and providing platforms for some of the most famous designers that have ever existed. Yet even though London Fashion Week prides itself on paving the way for the future of fashion it is unable to progress beyond some of the darkest and most horrific practices committed by the fashion world.

Every year the fur industry is responsible for the death of 1 billion rabbits and 50 million other animals - including foxes, minks, dogs, cats, racoons, chinchillas, seals and many more. Most of these animals are raised in fur farms, intensive facilities where the animals are kept in tiny cages and confined to a life of misery. These farms can hold thousands of animals and are designed to specifically maximise profits. These animals go insane performing psychotic repetitive behaviours such as circling endlessly in their cage as well as cannibalism and self-mutilation.

The most common methods of killing animals in fur farms is anal electrocution, gassing, poisoning or stomping on the animals and breaking their necks. These are all done to try and preserve the quality of the fur.

In the year 2000 fur farming was banned in the UK due to the horrific nature of these practices but fur can still be legally imported into this country. Why is it that London Fashion Week finds it morally justifiable to still provide a platform for fur and profit off the exploitation of an industry that was outlawed in the UK 17 years ago?

Big fashion labels like Armani, Stella McCartney, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, The Kooples, Vivienne Westwood and many more have denounced fur, yet London Fashion Week continues to provide the largest platform for fur in the UK. This has to stop.

As high fashion drips down into high street fashion, the relentless promotion of fur by high brow designers is culpable in the normalisation of cheap high street fur items that have been brought back into shops and market stalls. No doubt imitations of the the fur items featured in LFW this year will soon be seen donned by members of the public in the not too distant future.

Please sign our petition to ban fur from London Fashion Week.

This petition will be personally delivered to the British Fashion Council.