Forty-five years into PETA’s existence, Ingrid Newkirk can claim to have won many battles. Animal testing is marginally down, with multinational companies having to at least pay lip service to ideas around animal cruelty and environmentalism. And more than 25 million people worldwide have at least dipped a toe into veganism. PETA has certainly played some part in this with its activism. If they didn’t invent direct action, they normalized it.
Ingrid Newkirk was 54 when she thought she was going to die in a plane crash. It was late summer and the founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was flying from Minneapolis in the US to the company HQ in Norfolk, Virginia when her plane encountered strong wind shear. The pilot attempted an emergency landing, but failed; back up they went.
On the third attempt, with “a teaspoon of fuel” in the tank, he finally got the plane down safely. During those moments, Newkirk, now 76, scribbled a will on a napkin. She has tweaked it over the years, but it still reads like a horror movie prop list: her liver is to be sent to France to be made into foie gras, her skin to Hermès to create a handbag and her lips to whichever US president is in power, to shame them for granting a “patronising” pardon to a turkey each Thanksgiving. As wills go, it’s straight out of the Peta playbook: an audacious stunt of the kind that has made them the world’s most well-known, successful and in some quarters reviled animal rights organisation. “I know I’ll never be made a dame,” Newkirk says, laughing. “I’m too controversial.”
Forty-five years into PETA’s existence, she can claim to have won many battles. Animal testing is marginally down, with multinational companies having to at least pay lip service to ideas around animal cruelty and environmentalism. And according to YouGov, more than 25 million people worldwide have at least dipped a toe into veganism. Peta has certainly played some part in this, with its celebrity endorsements and theatrical stunts now par for the course in mainstream activism. If they didn’t invent direct action, they normalised it. But when it comes to fashion, in an era defined by waste in which our wardrobes are directly linked to global economic, humanitarian and climate crises, do we simply have more pressing concerns than whether or not to wear cashmere? In short: is Peta still relevant? MORWENNA FERRIER
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