We’re calling out designers and celebrities for the heinous act of trying to make feathers the new fur, a trend on full display at the Met Gala Monday night, which was framed around a “fashion is art” theme. 

Since when is animal cruelty art? What’s true for fur is true for feathers—whether wild birds are captured from their natural habitat or confined in factory farm conditions, live-plucked or killed for their feathers, it’s all animal cruelty and a denial of animal sentience. 

And no one can wear that well. 

Not Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman, Lena Dunham, Beyonce, Sam Smith, Alex Cosani, Gwendoline Christie, or any of the others that flaunted crow, ostrich and other feathers on the red carpet.

Ostrich feathers are the most commonly used feathers in the fashion industry with an estimate of more than one million birds being killed each year. While ostrich farming occurs around the world, South Africa dominates the market.

That ruffles our feathers as Friends of Animals launched a project in Senegal to help bring the North African, red-necked ostrich—the world’s largest bird—back from the brink of extinction. The demand for ostriches —from haute couture fashion houses in Paris coveting their feathers to manufacturers in Dallas wanting their skins for cowboy boots—caused their numbers to plummet. 

What adds insult to injury when it comes to feathers in fashion, the media doesn’t even bother to name the types of feathers used in the looks on the carpet. We had to dig deep to unearth that Dunham’s red sequined Valentino look used crow feathers. 

Shame on her. Crows are capable of abstract reasoning, complex problem-solving, and group decision-making.

Clearly they are smarter and make better decisions than those in fashion media. Women’s Wear Dailywrote: “Feathers emerged as one of the night’s clearest texture plays at the 2026 Met Gala, showing up in concentrated placements rather than full-on plumage.”

Reducing birds and their feathers to a texture just goes to show how stupid these people really are. 

Stay tuned for our expose of fashion’s exploitation of wild birds in fall Action Line.