Dead Animal Jewelry: RP/Encore Turns Roadkill Into A Fashion Statement (PHOTOS)

Reid Peppard is probably the only person who feels a rush of excitement when she sees a dead animal lying on the side of the road. To her, it isn't a rotting carcass, but a thing of beauty just waiting to have life breathed into it. Peppard's London-based fashion line, RP/Encore, uses taxidermy to turn dead creatures, namely rodents and vermin, into wearable accessories. Many have serious issues with just how "wearable" her pieces are, however, which range from full-on rat headpieces to pigeon feather necklaces.

Peppard was studying fine arts at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London when she became interested in taxidermy. For her, it seemed a natural marriage to combine her skills as an artist and taxidermist, and she sees her work as walking the line between fashion and fine art.

To be clear, you can take comfort in the fact that no animals are suffering for fashion here. Peppard, who is a vegetarian, uses animals that are "victims of roadkill, pest control, or natural death," with the occasional use of a feeder rat.

But is there really anything comfortable about this?

"If you don't like it, then just look away," Peppard offers to those who are offended by her "Vermin Collection." "So many people are unwilling to look inwards. They are unable to see beyond what they want to see."

It's hard to look away though, even if it does offend you. We're talking about dead rodents, with faces and limbs, hanging from your wrist, crowning your head, holding your coins, etc. Looking at these pieces upsets some and intrigues others. Whatever the reaction, it's anything but lukewarm. At a cost of 100 to 2,000 pounds a piece, you can have one of your very own "conversation starters." Lady Gaga even wore one in a music video.

Take a look and let us know what you think about these dead animal accessories.

Large White Rat Coin Purse

This is one of Peppard's most popular pieces, and arguably one of the more disturbing, or provoking, ones, depending on your take.

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Quick Poll

What do you think of this dead animal jewelry?

Absolutely shocking. No one should wear this.

I wouldn't wear it, but at least the animals aren't going to waste.

This is really creative and cool.

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Comments

[sgodawind]

07:44 AM on 01/29/2010

This is not chic, it's sick.

[doriath22]

03:10 PM on 01/28/2010

What, are you against recycling?
Personally, I prefer the use of live Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches (on a lead) as live jewelry!

[eleanorhawking]

10:51 AM on 01/28/2010

Absolutely disgusting.

[fcsakes]

08:52 AM on 01/28/2010

This is a joke, right?

What, torturing cattle, pigs, snakes, alligators, baby seals, etc isn't enough? Here's an idea, why don't you sick F's decorate your pathetic, shallow little bodies with your own parts? Start with your brain, you're not using it anyway.

[KIVPossum]

04:57 AM on 01/28/2010

Don't know who is sicker - the 'artist' who makes this or the people that buy it.

[LC808]

04:34 AM on 01/28/2010

Funny, I remember seeing dead animal jewelry in the comic Transmetropolitan and thinking, "that would never happen". Along with a few other ridiculous things they depicted over 10 years ago.

[Rachel O]

10:57 AM on 01/28/2010

I wonder if that's where she got the idea.

[Iowafarmgal]

01:33 AM on 01/28/2010

For starters this gal is a liar. Just how many lab mice, and rats do you see laying around as "road kill"? My bet is that she goes into a pet store and buys them just like the owners of reptiles do. Secondly, if those of us who live on farms butcher our own meat we can be prosecuted for a crime, because only a licensed meat locker can process meat. But, this gal can sell roadkill that could be carrying any number of diseases, not to mention parasites? This is nuts!

[Shaktiva]

07:02 AM on 01/28/2010

You have to be real fast after death to make it suitable for taxidermy. They'll never look this 'healthy' when she purposely 'finds' these.
I would find them too, if I were to squander around poison. Just a way to get us accept fur.

[LiberalBuzz]

12:22 AM on 01/28/2010

Sick.

[SneathLane]

10:16 PM on 01/27/2010

HuffPo readers who own cattle leather wallets and snake skin boots and sheep skin coats are getting outraged by a mouse purse. I don't get it.

[ssfahrer]

11:18 PM on 01/27/2010

At least we take the life out of it before we use it when we make a leather purse....

[SneathLane]

08:09 AM on 01/28/2010

? sorry, your comment makes no sense. Whether it's a sheep which is killed for its skin or a mouse that's killed for its skin, you "take the life out of it".

The mouse purses are exposing a lot of hypocrisy here - the objection seems to be that she does not disguise the mouse leather, she doesn't remove the other mouse parts, and so it is more cruel - but not to the mice, who are beyond caring when she converts them into purses. It's cruel to the humans who don't want to know where their leather and food come from.

I'm a meat eater - but I don't try to pretend it's particularly nice to eat animals. Or cabbages, for that matter. But I'm not going to live on fruit.

[quillsinister]

10:09 PM on 01/27/2010

I knew an artist who worked with twigs, bones, feathers, leaves and such. All dead things. Her work had a spare, almost Zen, simplicity. Nothing like wearing a taxidermied rat on one's head.

[Iowafarmgal]

01:37 AM on 01/28/2010

Be careful when handling carcasses. There is a reason the animal died! There are so many new and variable strains of disease out there that our Department of Natural Resource people can't even keep up. There is also lice, fleas, and other vermin on feathers and fur.

[mlaiuppa]

10:04 PM on 01/27/2010

That rat headpiece is made of domesticated rats. White rats and hooded rats are domesticated and in some areas are legal as pets. I had a hooded rat as a pet for a few years. They are sometimes referred to as feeder rats, since the babies are used to feed pet reptiles. That doesn't justify killing them.

Extermination through poison or gas or other means is no excuse either. I just don't buy the reuse something or it goes to waste or preserving their beauty. This is grotesque and borders on the mentally disturbing. There is nothing that can justify using these poor things as jewelry or fashion accessories. Claiming your a vegan doesn't excuse it either.

[SneathLane]

09:54 PM on 01/27/2010

And the ethical difference between a mouse change-purse and a normal leather wallet is what?

[mlaiuppa]

10:08 PM on 01/27/2010

Apparently it's because the mouse accidentally died through extermination (even though white mice are domesticated and can't survive in the wild. Makes me question her green claims.)

Victims of pest control is hardly the same as roadkill. Pest control is intentional.

And those feeder rats? They're domesticated too. Just because they're raised to feed reptiles it's OK to kill them for jewelry? Hooded rats are domesticated. Do some research. There are domesticated breeds of rats just like cats and dogs. And some people have them as pets. I had a hooded rat as a pet and I find the jewelry extremely disturbing and disrespectful and I find the green, vegan claims of the so called artist shallow and self-serving. What do you expect from someone charging $2000 for a fashion accessory.

[SneathLane]

10:15 PM on 01/27/2010

My question was what is the ethical difference between killing a mouse and making a purse out of it and killing a cow and making a wallet out of it?

[harto]

09:48 PM on 01/27/2010

I call shenanigans on this statement: "victims of roadkill, pest control, or natural death, with the occasional use of a feeder rat."

The vast majority of the rats pictured are white or hooded (black & white, brown & white) - These are NOT wild rats - They are what is known as fancy rats, pet rats, pet store rats, feeder rats. It is EXCEPTIONALLY rare to find a Norwegian Rat in the wild - Norwegian rats are fancy rats, pet rats, feeder rats. And while there is the occasional escapee, you certainly wouldn't run across them in numbers enough to make "art" with. Additionally, guinea pigs aren't exactly romping the city streets with abandon either.

This is not an artist, this is a killer of animals for the sake of her version of "art."

If the "artist" is killing animals, she is no less mentally ill that the serial killers that got their start that way.

I hope to God she has no children.

[fuqu]

09:16 PM on 01/27/2010

This is just another pathetic example of the cynical manipulation of the "art world" a la Hirst, Chapman Bros, Emin, Ophili, et al.
No talent? No problem, just shock them instead.

[ssfahrer]

11:22 PM on 01/27/2010

The "art world" has been a waste of time since right around 1900.... "Modern art" simply sucks. Even a 'madman' like Adolf Hitler realized that (he was an unsuccessful artist-- but only was unsuccessful because of the success of the CRAP that passed for art even in the 1910s and 1920s)....

[bettyx1138]

07:25 PM on 01/27/2010

oh those art skool kids.