Macy's pulls Sean John jackets believed to have dog fur

NEW YORK — Macy's has pulled from its shelves and its Web site two styles of Sean John hooded jackets, originally advertised as featuring faux fur, after an investigation by the nation's largest animal-protection organization concluded the garments were made from a species of dog called "raccoon dog."

"First these jackets were falsely advertised as faux fur, and then it turned out that the fur came from a type of dog," said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States.

Pacelle said the issue is an "industrywide problem" and that its investigation demonstrated retailers and designers "aren't paying close enough attention to the fur trim they are selling."

Raccoon dogs, which are not domestic animals, are indigenous to Asia, including eastern Siberia and Japan, and have been raised in large numbers because their fur closely resembles raccoon, Pacelle said.

Orlando Veras, a spokesman at Macy's, a division of Federated Department Stores, confirmed Friday the retailer had removed the Sean John jackets, part of the clothing line founded in 1998 by hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs.

The fur-lined jackets had been labeled "raccoon fur" but were advertised as faux fur, Pacelle said.

In a statement released by his publicist, Combs said: "I was completely unaware of the nature of this material. ... I have instructed our outerwear licensee to cease the production of any garments using this material immediately."

Macy's removal of the coats comes on the heels of other tests conducted by the Humane Society of the United States on a range of fur-trimmed jackets from retailers such as Burlington Coat Factory, Bloomingdale's, J.C. Penney and Saks Fifth Avenue, and from designers and clothing lines such as Baby Phat, Andrew Marc, MaxMara and Calvin Klein.

Those tests revealed most of the jackets labeled as "raccoon" or "coyote" from China contained fur from raccoon dogs.

Of the 10 garments that were tested by the Humane Society, nine tested positive as raccoon-dog fur.