Bengalaru Native and PETA France Activist Kept in Police Custody 24 Hours After Peaceful Protest Outside Hermès Fashion Show

For Immediate Release:

08 October 2025

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Lyon – Natasha Garnier, 36, originally from Bengalaru and a PETA France activist, was held in Paris police custody for almost 24 hours this weekend after organizing an action for animal rights outside the Hermès fashion show during Paris Fashion Week. She was one of four PETA France activists disguised as police officers who drove up to the Republican Guard where the event was being held to denounce the cruelty of the wild animal skins used by the brand. Last year, during the Dior show in Paris, Natasha stormed the runway to denounce the fashion house’s use of feathers. Wearing a faux-feather dress that made her back look like bloodied, live-plucked skin, Garnier held a sign reading, “F*ck Feathers!” before the star-studded audience.

This time, dressed in mock uniforms, the “fashion police” held up signs reading “Hermès: STOP ‘exotic’ skins” and “Killing for clothing: a crime of cruelty“. Two of them climbed onto the roof of the vehicle, shouting slogans through megaphones, such as “Animal victims: stealing their skin is a crime” and “Hermès, cruelty is not chic!” They were quickly arrested by the police and detained. The three other activists and the driver of the vehicle were released, but Natasha remained in custody, almost 24 hours after the incident, having spent the night at the Paris 13th arrondissement police station.

Photos of the action and a video are available upon request [photo credit : Cédric Deligne].

“Our activist was in custody for nearly 24 hours after organising a peaceful protest outside the Hermès fashion show to challenge the brand’s continued use of cruelly obtained wild animal skins,” said Poorva Joshipura, President of PETA International. “It’s not those who non-violently denounce cruelty who should be punished, but those responsible for this suffering: the brands that skin and kill sentient animals for fashion accessories.”

Investigations—including a video by the Australian charity Kindness Project, filmed in Hermès’s intensive animal farms—reveal the horrors endured by reptiles confined, butchered, and killed for their skins. It shows crocodiles cramped in grim enclosures and cages, dragged, mutilated, and stabbed with screwdrivers. A new investigation by PETA Asia revealed that thousands of crocodiles raised for their skins were spending their lives in filthy, cramped tanks at a farm in Thailand. One crocodile was seen moving for 23 long minutes after an employee plunged a metal blade into its neck.

PETA India points out that it takes three crocodiles to produce a single Hermès bag and that many fashion designers, including Victoria Beckham, Karl Lagerfeld, Mulberry, Paul Smith, Chanel, and Stella McCartney, have banned exotic skins from their collections.

Garnier was born in Bengaluru and grew up in Muscat, Oman. She returned to Bengaluru to complete her bachelor’s degree at Mount Carmel College, where she majored in French, communications, and sociology. She moved to France for her master’s degree in translations and decided to go vegan after adopting a dog, Sandy. Sandy helped her understand that there’s no difference between the animals we call friends and those we kill to eat. She became an animal rights activist shortly afterwards and works with local activists in Bengaluru whenever she returns home to visit her family. Garnier’s parents reside in Yeshwanthapura. 

PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

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