French luxury group announced that it has bought (without communicating the amount of investment) a pythons breeding in Thailand. The structure will ensure compliance with the highest international standards of environmental and social sustainability, notified the holding company that owns Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Yves Saint Laurent. It will begin producing adults pythons from 2018 and aims to be fully operational by 2020. According to Marie- Claire Daveu, Sustainability Director of Kering, this “is a long-term investment for the responsible and sustainable supply of python leather.” The French group, owned by the Pinault family, is already a member of the Python Conservation Partnership, which denounces a black market of one billion dollars in sharp contrast with a legal market of 500,000 (an increase of 40% over ten years). Kering move comes after a few weeks ago, the animal rights organization PETA, had challenged LVMH to take action and stops the use of reptile skins in the collections of its lines. Prada and Hermès had a similar experience with PETA trying to prevent them using ostrich skin. Kering, then, to distance themselves from a market, often at the borderline of legality and to avoid future potential embarrassments, bought a breeding farm. The Kering Group has also recently announced that the opening of the new tannery for Périers crocodile (160 employees) in Saint-Martin-d’Aubigny would be completed by 2020.
Kering opens python farming in Thailand
