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Steven Kolb restrained a PETA protester at the COS runway show during New York Fashion Week. On Sunday, a PETA protest at the COS runway show went viral when Steven Kolb, the CEO of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, roughly restrained two activists during the presentation. Online, a video<\/a> showed Kolb pinning a female protester down with his legs and covering her mouth and later pushing and covering the mouth of a male protester. The Cut spoke to a protester and witnesses who were at the show.<\/p>\n Kolb has led the CFDA, the trade organization that represents most major U.S. designers, since 2011 and is a fixture at New York Fashion Week.<\/p>\n On Sunday, hours after the show, Kolb addressed the incident in a statement on his personal Instagram account, writing, \u201cI reacted inappropriately to an incident at a show earlier today. It wasn\u2019t my place to do so. I should have let the security team handle the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, a representative for the board of the CFDA, which is chaired by Thom Browne, said Kolb \u201cwill be on leave pending a full review\u201d in a statement shared with The Cut. \u201cThe CFDA as an organization is committed to working with dissenting voices to find commonality and is leading efforts to move the American fashion industry forward while upholding the values of our membership, including respectful engagement with differing viewpoints,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n Kolb, meanwhile, posted another handful of Instagram Stories after the CFDA\u2019s statement, writing that he \u201cinappropriately restrained\u201d the protesters and apologizing for his behavior. \u201cThere is no justification for physically restraining another person,\u201d he wrote, describing the incident as \u201ccompletely out of character for me.\u201d He characterized his leave from the CFDA as \u201cvoluntary\u201d and said that he\u2019s accepted an invitation from PETA to meet and \u201capologize in person.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking with The Cut, Mason Melito \u2014 a senior campaign manager for PETA and one of the six protesters at the show \u2014 said, \u201cThe violence that the CEO Stephen Kolb showed us in his attempt to silence us just completely mirrors the violence that\u2019s inherent in the wool industry.\u201d Melito happened to be sitting near Kolb when he tried to walk out onto the runway toward the end of the COS show. \u201cOur lawyers and teams at PETA are deciding next steps to take, and we just want Kolb to know that we would like to meet with him,\u201d said Melito, who declined to share how he and the other protesters made it into the venue. One editor at The Cut remembers seeing one of the protesters posing as a publicist before the show and later realized that two others were pretending to be guests and looking for empty seats before the show started.<\/p>\n \u201cI personally was shaken. I think people around me were a bit shaken,\u201d said Steph Saltzman, the beauty and style director for Fashionista, who was sitting close to Kolb and captured the altercation on video.<\/a> She said the COS show was disrupted from the very beginning by PETA protesters who walked out onto the runway. The first one she saw carried a sign that read \u201cSheep Beaten and Bloodied for Wool, Don\u2019t Buy It!\u201d He was quickly taken away by security. Saltzman heard others yelling but couldn\u2019t see them from her seat. Then a female protester sitting near her tried to get up when Kolb intervened. \u201cHe ripped the sign out of her hands,\u201d she said, as the woman yelled. \u201cAt one point, he did wrap his leg around her. He had his hand on her mouth, trying to stop her from speaking. Everyone around me was, I think, in a little bit of a frozen moment of not really processing what was happening and trying to understand if they could intervene.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, Kolb let the protester go and she walked onto the runway. Melito was sitting nearby and waited until the runway finale to try to walk out when Kolb restrained him. Security eventually came over and took Melito away. Melito said he and the other protesters were escorted out. They didn\u2019t realize who Kolb was until they saw Fashionista<\/a> and others posting about the altercation online.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was quite stressful,\u201d said another fashion editor who asked to remain anonymous. \u201cSecurity were basically nowhere to be seen, even though there were so many of the protesters and they kept popping up.\u201d<\/p>\n Melito, a senior campaigner with PETA, said the animal-rights group is currently targeting H&M and urging the group, which owns COS, to stop using wool. PETA claimed that a recent investigation found workers harming sheep at a farm certified by Nativa, a group that designates responsible sources for wool and is used in H&M\u2019s supply chain. PETA put up an anti-wool billboard near one of H&M\u2019s Manhattan stores and organized a protest outside Rockefeller Center last week.<\/p>\n A representative for the H&M Group told The Cut that it \u201ctakes allegations of breaches of the third\u2011party certifications we rely on very seriously.\u201d The company says it only sources virgin wool and mohair from farms certified by third parties: the Responsible Wool Standard and the Responsible Mohair Standard. (Nativa is a separate certification, but it says its wool is certified by the Responsible Wool Standard too.) The representative for H&M said that PETA\u2019s allegations, which first came out in April, led the certification service that oversees RWS and RMS to investigate the farms involved<\/a>, and they are no longer certified. \u201cLicenses for one mohair and one wool farm have been suspended, and these farms are no longer permitted to sell certified materials,\u201d said the representative. \u201cWe welcome investigations such as these, as they play an important role in strengthening standards and driving progress, and we remain committed to continuously improving animal welfare across our value chain.\u201d<\/p>\n Representatives for COS and Nativa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n This post has been updated.<\/p>\n Stay in touch.<\/p>\n The latest in style, self, culture, and power in your inbox.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: PETA<\/a><\/p>\n