Mysuru: Models in Tiger Bodysuits Freed from Cages on Runway to mark the theme ‘Fashion for Freedom’.
Bollywood’s Soha Ali Khan, fashion designer Jayanthi Ballal and Mysore Fashion Week, teamed up with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India to promote the PETA’s campaign against the imprisonment of animals in zoos.
Ballal’s all-vegan show opened with a video appeal asking attendees to say no to zoos. Two models dressed in tiger outfits and locked in a cage were then set free by Khan. The models walked the ramp with the actor and designer holding placards that read, “Wild Animals Belong in the Wild, Not in Zoos“ and ”No More Cages. Say NO to Zoos”.
Popular show choreographer Achla Sachdev and PETA India Associate Manager of Celebrity and Media Projects Benazir Suraiya also walked the ramp with them. PETA India also had an information stall at Mysore Fashion Week, where it distributed information about the campaign, vegan fashion and other animal-rights issues.
“Fashion is about freedom of expression, but in zoos, animals are often unable to even swim, fly, socialise, forage for food, choose a mate or engage in other natural behaviours”, Ballal says. “Compassion is the true fashion. I urge everyone to stay away from zoos, which are nothing but animal prisons.”
Denied everything that is natural and important to them, animals in zoos often express their frustration and loneliness through obsessive, repetitive and even self-destructive behaviour, such as pacing, head-bobbing and self-mutilation. Lions and other big cats have 18,000 times less space in zoos than in the wild, and that figure rises to 1 million times less space for captive polar bears. PETA’s extensive undercover investigations into zoos across India have found appalling neglect, decrepit facilities and animal suffering on a massive scale.
