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Clothes made of cat fur were discovered being sold in Victoria despite the Australian government's promise to crack down on the practice, an advocacy group said.
An investigation by Collective Fashion Justice and Australia's Animal Justice Party found that children's vests containing cat fur were sold while being labelled as fake fur or sheep wool.
Forensic testing revealed the vest sold by fashion brand Suttons UGG was made of domestic cat fur and rabbit fur. However, the vest was labelled as "100 per cent Australian sheepskin or wool".
Similarly, two beanies with pom-poms sold at a Queen Victoria market in central Melbourne were found to be falsely labelled as 100 per cent "acrylic". A test by British fibre analysis firm Microtex revealed they were made from fox and raccoon dog fur.
The discoveries have led to calls from animal rights groups and the Animal Justice Party for a statewide ban on the sale of all animal fur. The Australian Fashion Council, earlier this yea,r banned the use of fur, wild-animal skins, and wild feathers from runways.
"Every Victorian would be shocked to know that they could go to the store and accidentally buy something made from cat fur, when they may have a cat at home themselves," Collective Fashion Justice founder Emma Hakansson said.
Suttons UGG, which has retail stores in Sydney and Melbourne, in a statement to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, admitted the label on the vest was "wrong".
A spokesperson told the broadcaster they had been informed by the manufacturer that the vest was made from a "kind of special fur", and the company could not "100 per cent confirm" whether that included cat.
The Australian government banned the import and export of cat and dog fur in 2004. In 2020, a Consumer Affairs Victoria investigation into the mislabelling of fur products found that every product independently tested by the taskforce was wrongly labelled.
Shortly after, fur sellers were issued warnings.
Georgie Purcell, the Animal Justice Party MP for Northern Victoria, has called for the sale of fur to be banned.
"The message from the community couldn't be clearer – fur is out of fashion. Whether it's cat, dog, rabbit, or fox – the one constant is that it's all cruel," she said.
"The time for regulation is done. The only thing left to do is to completely ban fur, just as other jurisdictions around the world have already done."
