By Rifan Muazin 
The intersection of high fashion, animal rights activism, and corporate governance reached a boiling point during New York Fashion Week when a protest at the COS runway show spiraled into a viral scandal involving one of the industry’s most powerful figures. On a Sunday that was meant to celebrate the minimalist, high-end aesthetic of the Swedish brand, the atmosphere shifted abruptly when activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) disrupted the proceedings. The protestors, carrying signs that decried the use of wool as inherently abusive to sheep, were met with a physical response that has since sent shockwaves through the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).
The incident gained immediate notoriety after footage emerged showing Steven Kolb, the CEO and president of the CFDA, forcibly restraining two of the activists. The videos, which quickly proliferated across social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, depicted a level of physical confrontation rarely seen from executive leadership in the fashion world. The fallout was swift. By Monday, Kolb had issued a statement on his personal Instagram account announcing a voluntary leave of absence. In his post, Kolb expressed a commitment to professional development, stating he would be "meeting with a professional to ensure it never happens again." While the CFDA and PETA have remained relatively tight-lipped in the immediate aftermath, the incident has reignited a fierce global debate: is wool a sustainable, natural miracle fiber, or is it a product of systemic animal cruelty that the modern fashion industry must outgrow?
To understand the weight of this confrontation, one must look at the polarizing views held by the stakeholders involved. PETA’s platform is uncompromising. The organization argues that the commercial wool industry is built upon a foundation of exploitation. Their protest signs in New York—reading “Sheep Beaten and Bloodied for Wool, Don’t Buy It!”—reflect a long-standing campaign against the shearing process. PETA maintains that "no certification can protect sheep from the inherent cruelty of the wool industry," suggesting that the profit motive will always supersede animal welfare. They point to undercover investigations that have documented shearers working at high speeds, leading to nicks, gashes, and rough handling that traumatizes the animals.
However, the perspective from the agricultural and sustainability sectors offers a more nuanced, and often contradictory, narrative. Experts argue that the relationship between humans and sheep is now one of biological necessity due to centuries of selective breeding. Unlike wild sheep, which naturally shed their winter coats, domestic breeds like the Merino have been bred to produce continuous wool growth. Without regular shearing, these animals face severe health risks. Excess wool can lead to heat exhaustion, restricted movement, and "wool blindness," where fleece grows over the animal’s eyes. Furthermore, overgrown wool becomes a breeding ground for parasites and can lead to infections. In countries with high welfare standards, such as Australia and Sweden, annual shearing is not just a commercial activity; it is a legal requirement designed to ensure the health and hygiene of the livestock.
Beyond the biological necessity of shearing, a growing movement within the industry views wool as a cornerstone of regenerative agriculture. Lisa Bergstrand, a sustainability expert and the founder of Bergstrand Consultancy, argues that the conversation should focus on "how" wool is produced rather than "if" it should be used. Bergstrand, who also launched the Good Wool Collective, works to bridge the gap between fashion brands and responsible farmers. She posits that when managed correctly, sheep can be a vital tool in combating climate change.
"As long as we have sheep, they’re going to be growing wool," Bergstrand noted, emphasizing that the focus should be on farming in a way that benefits both the animal and the land. Regenerative sheep farming utilizes holistic grazing techniques that mimic the movement of wild herds. By rotating sheep across different pastures, farmers allow the soil to recover and the grass to grow deeper roots. This process facilitates carbon sequestration—the capturing of atmospheric carbon dioxide into the soil. Bergstrand recounted a visit to a farm in Australia where a producer found his land was absorbing three times more carbon than it emitted. This "carbon-positive" potential makes wool a unique outlier in an industry dominated by synthetic fibers derived from fossil fuels.
Despite these environmental silver linings, the industry continues to grapple with "mulesing," perhaps the most contentious practice in wool production. Melanie Lary, a research and campaigns manager at the global animal welfare organization Four Paws, highlights that many consumers are shielded from the harsher realities of the supply chain. Mulesing, or "live lamb cutting" (LLC), involves removing strips of wool-bearing skin from around a lamb’s breech to prevent flystrike. Flystrike is a horrific condition where parasitic flies lay eggs in the skin folds of the sheep, leading to larvae eating the animal’s flesh—a condition that is often fatal.
While mulesing is intended to prevent a greater evil, the procedure is frequently performed without adequate pain relief, leading to immense suffering. Lary points out that while the practice is uncommon in the United States, it remains legal and prevalent in Australia, which provides a massive portion of the world’s apparel-grade wool. "Every wool garment globally still has an approximately 60% chance of originating from sheep that endured this suffering," Lary stated, though she emphasized that pain-free alternatives, such as breeding sheep with smoother skin that is naturally resistant to flystrike, are already being adopted by thousands of forward-thinking farmers.
The push for transparency has led to the rise of rigorous certification schemes. The Responsible Wool Standard (RWS), managed by Textile Exchange, has become the industry benchmark. Sarah Needham, Chief Engagement and Partnerships Officer at Textile Exchange, explains that RWS-certified farms are held to the "Five Freedoms" of animal welfare: freedom from hunger and thirst; discomfort; pain, injury, or disease; fear and distress; and the freedom to express natural behavior. Critically, the RWS prohibits mulesing entirely. Brands that source RWS-certified wool must undergo third-party audits to ensure their entire supply chain—from the farm to the final garment—is traceable and compliant.
In a surprising twist, considering the PETA protest, COS (and its parent company, the H&M Group) has been recognized as a leader in this space. An October 2025 report by Four Paws analyzed over 100 brands and identified COS as a "transparency leader." Alongside outdoor giants like Patagonia and Arc’teryx, COS was praised for exclusively sourcing certified LLC-free wool and providing clear disclosures to its customers. This raises a poignant question within the industry: why target a brand that is arguably doing more than most to fix the problem?
Lisa Bergstrand suggests that the focus on wool might be misplaced when looking at the broader environmental impact of fast fashion. Wool currently accounts for only about 0.9% of the global textile and fiber market. The vast majority of the industry is fueled by polyester and other synthetic materials that are not only carbon-intensive to produce but also shed microplastics into the water supply—plastics that will never biodegrade. "I think it’s good to talk about the fact that we use animal materials," Bergstrand said, "but when it comes to COS and H&M group, there’s a lot of other problems that I would protest before I would protest what they do when it comes to animal welfare."
The H&M Group has historically been criticized as one of the world’s largest polluters due to its sheer volume of production, yet it has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars into decarbonizing its supply chain and pioneering textile-to-textile recycling. The tension between the scale of fast fashion and the artisanal, slow nature of responsible wool production remains a central challenge. For consumers, the choice is becoming increasingly complex. While animal-free alternatives like Tencel, organic cotton, and hemp are gaining popularity, they do not always offer the same thermal regulation, durability, and fire-resistant properties as wool.
As the fashion world moves forward from the New York Fashion Week incident, the focus remains on the CFDA’s leadership and the industry’s ability to police itself. Steven Kolb’s leave of absence marks a rare moment of accountability for a high-ranking executive, but the underlying issues of animal welfare and environmental stewardship are far from resolved. The debate over wool is no longer just about fashion; it is a microcosm of the larger struggle to balance human needs with the ethical treatment of the natural world. Whether through the adoption of RWS standards, the transition to regenerative farming, or the development of high-tech plant-based fibers, the industry is at a crossroads where transparency is the only viable path forward. The protesters at the COS show may have been silenced in the moment, but the questions they raised continue to echo in every boardroom and on every runway across the globe.
