Chanel has become the first luxury fashion house in the world to stop using exotic animal skins, like snake, crocodile, lizard and stingray.
The company’s head of fashion, Bruno Pavlovksy, said it had become harder to source such pelts ethically.
He also included fur in the list, of which Chanel uses little.
Although Chanel’s designer Karl Lagerfeld insisted the move was made independently, animals rights groups hailed the decision.
Peta said in an Instagram post “2018 is THE YEAR for designers coming out of the stone age”.
Mr Lagerfeld and Mr Pavlovsky spoke to industry publication Women’s Wear Daily about the decision.
“We did it because it’s in the air, but it’s not an air people imposed to us,” Mr Lagerfeld said, although he noted “there was not much fur” in Chanel’s work to begin with.
Python skin bags were reportedly taken down from the Chanel site on Tuesday, but Mr Pavlovsky said it would take a while for existing products to leave their shops.
The company would now focus developing leather and other material from “agri-food” industries, he said.
Other luxury brands have also stopped using fur but campaigners hope they will follow Chanel in abandoning exotic skins.