COS’s latest New York Fashion Week show was supposed to be about the clothes. Instead, it became the scene of a physical confrontation between PETA protesters and Steven Kolb, CEO and president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
Several PETA activists interrupted the show to protest COS and its use of wool. Videos from the audience show Kolb grabbing protesters and attempting to cover one woman’s mouth, while another video appears to show him using his leg to restrain her. The footage quickly spread across social media, turning what was meant to be COS’s fifth consecutive NYFW show into something much bigger.
Perhaps the strangest part of the footage is the reaction around them. Other guests simply remained seated as the confrontation unfolded beside them, watching it happen from the front row.
Kolb later acknowledged on Instagram that he had “reacted inappropriately,” saying it was not his place to intervene and that he should have left the situation to security. PETA said it planned to file a police report and pursue criminal charges, while the CFDA later echoed Kolb’s statement.
And then there was the collection — which, after all, was supposed to be the point of the show.
A DIALOGUE OF CORPORATE MODERNISM AND 1920S DECADENCE – COS
COS kept the palette almost entirely dark, with white barely appearing across the collection. Black, charcoal and deep neutrals dominated, putting more attention on the fabrics, layering and tailoring than on colour.
Ultra-long, precisely tailored topcoats were some of the strongest silhouettes, while leather, wool, cashmere and faux fur were mixed together across monochrome looks. The collection played with proportion too, moving between long, sharp outerwear and more oversized, cropped tailoring.
Small details — zips, subtle patterns and changes in texture — appeared throughout, but nothing really broke the restraint of the palette. If anything, the lack of colour made the materials impossible to ignore.
This is also the first New York Fashion Week season in which the CFDA has prohibited animal fur from collections on its official schedule, following similar policies in cities including London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Stockholm.
COS’s faux-fur jackets and coats fit into that fur-free direction. But replacing real fur with faux fur doesn’t automatically make a material sustainable. The pieces list polyester for the shell and viscose for the lining, according to their listed compositions.
And this is where the conversation gets more complicated. Removing one animal-welfare issue doesn’t necessarily remove the environmental one. Better for animals does not automatically mean better for the planet.
PETA‘s protest wasn’t specifically about the faux fur. The activists were targeting COS and its use of wool, arguing that sheep are subjected to cruelty within the wool industry. PETA has been pushing its “Wool Kills” campaign throughout NYFW, including protests earlier in the week focused on alleged abuse during shearing.
After the COS show, the organisation continued the campaign across social media, arguing that replacing fur while continuing to use wool doesn’t go far enough. One of its posts following the incident read: “You can’t silence the truth. […] We’ll keep showing up until every runway is wool-free.”
The organisation has been turning up at fashion shows since 1991, when its campaigns against fur, leather and skins began making their way directly into the industry’s most visible spaces. What started with protesters carrying signs and staging demonstrations decades ago has evolved into something much harder for fashion to ignore: viral videos, social media campaigns and interruptions that can become part of the story almost as quickly as the collection itself.
More than three decades later, the setting has changed, but the message hasn’t.