Inside the Antifur March that Roiled Milan Fashion Week

The crowds outside a major fashion show often start to form a few hours in advance, with expectant fans hoping to spot their favorite celebrities. This scene played out on Wednesday during Milan Fashion Week, in front of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s second ready-to-wear show for Fendi, and the celebs in question included Monica Bellucci, Rachel Zegler, and Bang Chan of the K-pop group Stray Kids. But the screams from fans as the stars entered weren’t the only ones outside the venue.

On the other side of Via Solari, a handful of policemen gathered around dozens of demonstrators, who ardently—but peacefully—chanted for entirely different reasons. They passed around bright yellow pamphlets featuring a raccoon in a cage, and a QR code to register to attend an antifur march on Saturday. Also included was a letter to Carlo Capasa, the president of the Camera Nazionale Della Moda Italiana, outlining their intentions. The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) and the Animal Defense League Italia are demanding a fur ban from the organizers of Milan Fashion Week, which the New York and London fashion weeks have committed to already. According to the protesters, the main brand blocking a similar ban is Fendi.

Chiuri’s runway was encased by a reflective glass structure, which some observers presumed was a device to prevent protester interventions. After PETA protesters intercepted runway shows by Cos in New York and H&M in London earlier this month, the presumption wasn’t outlandish—but it was wrong. Instead, the show space was inspired by the artist Luciano Fabro’s Cubo di Specchi, an art installation from the 1970s designed to make an audience confront their surroundings while engaging with the artwork shown inside it.

“This is a march to protest the use of real fur in the Milan Fashion Week,” a woman with an Italian accent said at the Saturday protest, which began at Piazza Cordusio, a stone’s throw away from the Duomo. “New York has already done it, and London has already done it,” she said. “Milan and Paris are left, but I think Milan is close to doing it because there is a lot of pressure.” She said they were expecting more than 500 people at that day’s demonstration, based on online registrations.

“It’s specifically Fendi,” an American volunteer, who said she flew in from Nebraska for the march, said. “We’re putting pressure for them to also ban fur on their runways.” Another woman with an American accent approached us. She asked if I worked at Vogue.

I used to, I said.

“Maybe you remember us, we campaigned against Vogue?”

Throughout 2025, CAFT, in a joint effort with PETA, campaigned fiercely against Vogue. Part of that effort included demonstrations outside of the homes of many of its senior leaders, including Mark Guiducci, now the global editorial director of Vanity Fair. The goal of the nine-month-long campaign was to force the publication to ban fur from its pages, presumably as a way to push LVMH, which owns Fendi, Berluti, and Loro Piana, to stop using fur. In October of last year, Condé Nast, the parent company of Vogue, Vanity Fair, and more, officially banned new animal fur across all its global editorial content and advertising. Kering, the rival luxury conglomerate to LVMH, went fur-free in 2022.

The mile-long march on Saturday, which departed some time after its announced start time at 2:30 p.m. and continued until it reached Porta Venezia, weaved past one of Fendi’s main retail destinations in the city. It was a reminder that Fashion Week does not happen in a bubble of ostentatious runway shows and high-profile celebrity appearances, but that it takes place, largely, where people live and work, with locals who complain about heavy traffic, neighbors who’d prefer to not see crowds outside their windows, and people who view fashion as a serious business and expect more from its leaders.

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