Why are ASOS banning

[eloisesparkle]

Cashmere, silk, mohair and feathers from January 2019 ?
Feathers I can understand but the others ?

Because they are unethical and cruel to animals. Shearing sheep for example often causes pain cuts and infections. Lookup peta website for more info.
You could shop for these elsewhere.

Thank you

Because of the cruelty in the industries involved in making them.

I thought sheep had to be sheared?

Animals like this do have to be sheared. ASOS are being misled

@IHaveBrilloHair apparently the issue with cashmere and mohair is that the goats are sheared en masse (so with less care for injuries) and all year round, leading to them dying of the cold. Because of high demand.

Silk, the worms are gassed in their cocoons after they’re done. So bred and then killed just for silk.

Feathers is pretty self explanatory.

I have to say I didn’t know any of this before this thread, not that I wear any of those fabrics. I’m glad I don’t now!

A lot of cheap cashmere and particularly mohair is taken from live animals. Silkworms can be boiled alive to extract silk.

The problem is not so much the materials but how they are sourced for cheaper clothes. High end cashmere is likely to be ethical in terms of the average person in the street’s standards but not budget cashmere.

However, much replacement material is artificial and causes huge pollution and other environmental issues.

craftsmanship.net/eco-fashions-animal-rights-delusion/
www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/20/microfibers-plastic-pollution-oceans-patagonia-synthetic-clothes-microbeads

Oh, I had no idea.
Thanks for informing me.

A lot of cheap cashmere and particularly mohair is taken from live animals.

Are you the kind of person who kills the goose to get all the golden eggs? Would you prefer it if the animals were killed before their wool was sheared off? Wool is a renewable resource, it grows, the weather gets warm, the animal starts moulting so the farmer shears the animal. Fleece grows back for the winter, sheep is sheared in the spring again. While I'm sure there may be some farmers who treat their animals badly the basic principle is fine.

@CountFosco that’s the point, a lot of them aren’t well treated. I’ve lived on a sheep farm (Croft) as a child, I’ve been part of shearing sheep for the summer. That isn’t the cruelty, it’s the way they’re treated that makes it cruel. If they are well cared for, seen by vets in the event of an injury, or sheared at the right time of year there is no problem.

But the super cheap stuff? That doesn’t come from places where they’re treated well.

CountFosco are you being deliberately obtuse? While it is better that animals are sheared humanely, it is not better that rabbits and goats have their undersides plucked over and over to get the delicate undercoat hairs resulting in extreme pain and distress to them.

It's actually more cruel not to shear sheep than it is to shear. I have seen videos claiming that sheep are hurt while being sheared, but I grew up in the country, where I saw sheep being sheared all the time. They were all treated kindly, and all the wool left in bags to be sold. So it's not all bad with wool.

That is great news!
I don’t understand people saying the industry is fine because they have grown up in the country and seen it done, so it’s all good...
The point is when these items are produced in mass/ cheaply there is no regard to the wellbeing of the animals.
Or do you say you have seen someone working in a factory in the UK and it’s all good,and just ignore what is happening in the rest of the world?
And that’s just for the sheep wool, there is no ethical way of obtaining mohair, silk and feathers.
Also people loving going on about other methods of producing clothing are more polluting - no, they’re not.

@Mrs9C you didn’t RTFT or the link did you?

There are ways and means of getting mohair and cashmere.

The higher the price, the more likely the animals were treated humanely.

The cheaper clothes more likely come from places where animals aren't treated well.

We all have to think very hard about new clothes when the world is swamped with clothing.

We need to buy less. We need to think hard about every purchase. We need to think about where it comes from.

Stop putting daft slogans on cotton T-shirts and you can wear them for years.

angora should be included in this list.

Angora should absolutely be on the list.

Yes sheep need to be sheared now, but only because we’ve selectedly bred them to produce way more wool than they naturally would. In times past they would grow wool in winter and then shed in summer, they can’t do this now. It’s obvious when you think about it, an animal wouldn’t naturally evolve to need another animal to shear it.

Alongside producing too much wool they also often have also been bred to have excess skin (more surface area for wool) which makes them more liable to be cut by over zealous shearers. Many many farmers take care with their sheep, but many others pay shearers by the piece encouraging speed and therefore injury to the sheep, flystrike is also a concern with all the extra skin and mulesing does still happen.

The thing is once wool goes into the supply chain it’s far harder to track than say, meat, where you can get a better idea of welfare levels, so it’s very hard to make informed choices.

I suspect angora isn’t on the list because it isn’t particularly popular at the moment whereas there were recent trends for feathers and mohair. Cashmere and silk are perennial and I suspect they’ve come up as part of the new ASOS Design strategy.

PETA are forever chasing us up at work about welfare standards (lots of skins from various animal used) but there just isn’t the financial impetus to do anything because snakes and crocodiles aren’t as cute as fluffy bunnies and lovely goats so the general public won’t object.

I definitely DON’T want to buy these fabrics produced cruelly. (Not bothered about anything apart from cashmere). But due to concerns about microfibres entering the sea, and just about high consumerism in general, I was going to commit this winter to trying to buy very few things but of very good quality and natural fibers - cashmere and silk were definitely on the list.

Do you really think it’s okay to buy expensive cashmere, or are we just fooling ourselves that it’s got higher standards? Eg Brora cardigan really all right?

Also I come from a cold wet region so wool is ideal. Plus I thought that British wool was completely unwanted and fleeces sold for nothing?

So hard to know what to do! Apart from reduce consumption.

Prince Charles was trying to publicise British wool a few years back. We have amazing quality in this country.

Yes and I really noticed that uniqlo’s merino wool cardis etc are much worse quality than they were ten years ago - I have ones from then that are in brilliant nick, never as single bobble, then a couple from last couple of years that are disastrously bobbled and worn.

If you have ever sheared a sheep you know it has to be done pretty quickly because they are wriggly and you need speed on your side to get the job done!

Farmers are paid a pittance for fleeces, so I don't think they're doing it for the money.

PETA are a political organisation and their motives are their own and not what they seem. Everything that they say needs to be treated as needing independent verification.

Well haffiana you could also argue that those making money out of cashmere and selling wool also have a vested interest: money.
Its one thing shearing on a lovely little farm and on a business scale.