Karishma Mehta, HOB’s founder and CEO recently announced that she will be handing over her portfolio of luxury leather products as a measure to end all cruelty involved in the manufacturing process of their clothing by the year 2025.
A Mumbai-based entrepreneur declared that she would never buy leather goods again and vowed to sell the existing leather goods she owns. She will donate the money received from selling them to animal welfare organizations. She posted pictures of her luxury bags and shoes, which include the products of popular brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), and Fendi, on Instagram.
Mehta went on in her post and said, “As a vegetarian, I will not eat meat because it just does not feel right to eat something that breathes. Then how can it possibly feel right for me to buy into an industry that thinks itself ‘high end’ by making their price high based upon the quality of animal being flayed?
Mehta, who established HOB in 2014, has developed a powerful social media platform. She has interviewed people from different walks of life and has more than 2.8 million followers on Instagram. She has also interviewed India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and industrialist Ratan Tata, among others.
Last year, the Mehta story was marred by criticism, when Brandon Stanton, founder of Humans of New York (HONY), leveled accusations against HOB of mimicking the former’s format. This controversy emerged after HOB filed a case of copyright infringement against another story-telling site, People of India (POI). It responded with an open letter from HOB claiming that Stanton’s remarks were nothing but a “cryptic assault” on its efforts to uphold intellectual property rights.
In another post, Mehta professed her regards for the influence of HONY. ” .we have been inspired by HONY, and we will always be grateful to them for showing us what storytelling can do for a community.”
