THE EXTREMIST.(People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals official Ingrid Newkirk)

Each year, Victoria's Secret puts on a show in which two dozen of the world's most alluring models stroll down the runway dressed in nothing but stilettos and lingerie. Last November, the spectacle was held at New York City's Lexington Avenue Armory, and scalpers were selling tickets for five hundred dollars. Celebrities like Donald Trump, Susan Lucci, and Woody Harrelson were there that night, and eleven million people watched on network television. Security was unusually tight: New York City police were on hand in large numbers, as were many private bodyguards, along with a highly experienced team hired by Victoria's Secret. To enter the armory, guests had to wait half an hour, then file through a checkpoint where their bodies were scanned and their bags searched with great care.

None of that prevented four members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals from infiltrating the audience. As the Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen made her way down the catwalk, dressed in a beaded bra and black panties, the women leaped onto the stage, unfurling signs that said "Gisele: Fur Scum."The women from peta, as the animal-rights organization is always called, were gone in less than thirty seconds--dragged off the runway, then arrested, arraigned, and deposited in the Tombs. Gisele, the world's most highly paid model, and the current face of the Blackglama fur ad--"What becomes a legend most?”--seemed unfazed by the commotion; CBS shot the segment again, and the show went on. But film clips and news stories about the attack appeared throughout the world, dominating coverage of the show and infuriating Victoria's Secret.

It was not the first such event that peta had disrupted, of course. There have been hundreds--in the United States, Europe, once even in Beijing. peta activists have crawled through the streets of Paris with leg-hold traps around their feet; they have dumped buckets of money soaked in fake blood on audiences at the International Fur Fair. Recently, the group ran ads comparing the deaths of women murdered and dismembered by a serial killer to those of animals killed for meat. Officially, peta does not engage in violence, but its leaders wholeheartedly defend and encourage guerrilla groups like the Animal Liberation Front. In fact, Bruce Friedrich, one of peta's most prominent leaders, says in a speech that is readily available on the Internet, "I think it would be a great thing if, you know, all these fast food outlets and these slaughterhouses and these laboratories and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow.''

One of peta's best-known slogans is "I'd rather go naked than wear fur,"and the group has made good publicly on that promise so many times that the fashion community has come to expect it. Not long after the Victoria's Secret show, I called Gisele's manager, to ask about the episode. She told me that it was important to know that "in real life Gisele doesn't wear fur. It's just not who she is. You will never run into her on the street in fox or mink. Never.

"Gisele did the Blackglama ad because of its history,'' she continued. "She saw Marlene Dietrich and Bette Davis and Maria Callas, and they were legends. And that is the motto. Gisele saw it that way and so did I. We did not see this as a product.'' (Neither Blackglama nor Victoria's Secret was willing to talk about the show, peta, the unwanted publicity, or the ads.)

A few days later, Us Weekly reported that Ben Affleck had bought a chinchilla coat in Las Vegas for Jennifer Lopez. peta's special-projects coordinator, Carrie Beckwith, immediately sent Affleck a letter in which she noted that it takes as many as a hundred chinchillas to make such a coat, and she described the process. "The preferred method of killing chinchillas is by genital electrocution: a method whereby the handler attaches an alligator clamp to the animal's ear and another to her genitalia and flips a switch, sending a jolt of electricity through her skin down the length of her body. The electrical current causes unbearable muscle pain, at the same time working as a paralyzing agent, preventing the animal from screaming or fighting.

"You've been so good to animals in the past,'' the letter stated. "Now more than ever they need you on their side.'' To help make her point, she included a graphic video. Affleck replied at once. "You have opened my eyes to a particularly cruel and barbaric treatment of animals,'' he wrote. "I can assure you I do not endorse such treatment and will not do anything in the future that supports it. . . . I thank you for your letter. . . . A contribution to your organization is forthcoming.''