PETA were in Seoul for a couple of campaigns at the end of March, and one of them was to take the "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign to Seoul Fashion Week. KARA was there to photograph the event, hand out leaflets and generally help out. Here’s part of PETA's media release:

PETA wants fashion week attendees to know that animals trapped for their fur suffer excruciating pain—often for days—before their chests are stomped on or their necks are broken by trappers. Beavers caught in underwater traps struggle frantically before they drown. On fur farms, animals spend their entire lives confined to tiny, filthy cages, where they suffer physical and psychological distress before they are poisoned, gassed, or anally or genitally electrocuted or have their necks broken. In China, which is the world’s leading fur exporter, millions of dogs and cats are killed for their fur, and animals on Chinese fur farms are frequently skinned alive. Because cat and dog fur is often deliberately mislabeled as fur from other species, it can wind up in stores anywhere in the world.

The “naked” ladies didn’t go onto the premises of the Seoul Trade Exhibition Center (SETEC) where Fashion Week was being held. The terrain was too tricky and staff might have ousted them. Instead, press were alerted to wait at the intersection of Nambusunhwan-ro and Yeongdongdae-ro, or exit 1 of Hangnyeoul Station (Line 3).

You can see the fashion week venue, SETEC, in the background. The phalanx of press and photographers, who were the main audience for the demonstration, were waiting in force as the girls arrived.

Here they come! They walked across the road then positioned themselves on the corner to be photographed by the press and to announce some anti-fur messages.

At one stage, the girls were totally surrounded.

The girl on the left, Ashley Fruno, is from PETA Asia while the others are local girls. They all made some anti-fur announcements and proclamations and generally posed for photographers. Here is the blurb from the media release:

“I’ll gladly bare my skin if it will help save animals’ skins,” says PETA’s Ashley Fruno. “In the 21st century, with so many stylish, comfortable alternatives to fur available, there’s no excuse for supporting one of the most hideous industries on the planet.”

The girls next heading down the sidewalk, while press scrambled madly to stay in front.

The girls then stopped again outside a different entrance and vantage point, from which they could spread their message, as pictured in the first shot above.

After photo ops there, they walked further up the sidewalk. This was the last part of the demo, a photo op in which the press hung back as if by some prearranged agreement.

It was a good chance to capture the girls without people scrambling around and getting in the way.

The girls then made their exit in a taxi. If anyone is wondering how activists get away from such demonstrations, while wrapped in a banner and still trying to maintain the illusion of nakedness. Well, they simply clambered into the taxi as a group with the banner still wrapped around them! Now you know.

I was informed that PETA was very pleased with the size of the press turnout. All in all it was a very successful campaign and subsequent media coverage was great--something like five newspapers featured it and it ran on SBS and KBS TV. Also, some pictures taken by KARA were used on several Korean news websites.

Here's a page full of links to Korean coverage on the Web:

http://kaap.or.kr/new_site/free.html?mode=read&idx=22646

Here are some good video links:

http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/03/27/2009032701852.html

http://www.segye.com/Articles/Movie/Default.asp?aid=20090327002947&subctg1=&subctg2=

http://www.nownewstv.com/news/newsView.php?id=20090327602002

http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=102&oid=001&aid=0002576479

Hopefully the message PETA brought to Seoul will have some impact in reducing the sale of fur products. It's all very simple:

PLEASE DON'T BUY ANY PRODUCT THAT USES ANIMAL FUR.