For fox sake
Winter in the north-east of Scotland can get very cold indeed. The sea breeze coupled with a near Arctic frost often makes you wish that you had a warm and toasty layer of fur to keep you that little bit warmer.
I was still extremely surprised, however, when on Hogmanay a friend of mine turned up to meet our group wearing a 1950s style three-quarter length rabbit-lined leather coat with warm and luxurious fur trimmings adorning the collar and cuffs, abundantly suitable for the cold of the outdoor party we were heading for.
Throughout the evening, this rather spectacular item caused a lot of comment, from admiration to disgust, but the fact that it was being worn at all was an indication of changing attitudes towards fur as a fashion statement.
For many years wearing fur has been the kind of sartorial political incorrectness that would see celebrities blacklisted from fashion pages across the land. The use of fur in fashion is an emotive issue in a way that leather is not: comparatively few people would think twice about purchasing leather shoes, coats and other accessories yet many find the notion of wearing fur quite repellent.
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) campaign "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" has been since the early 1990s a striking and high profile way of getting the group's message across.
Celebrities such as Kim Basinger and Christy Turlington stripped off to make their point (Naomi Campbell later provoked PETA's outrage when she broke the terms of her endorsement of them by appearing on the catwalk wearing a fur coat - three times). There were also naked protests against the use of fur appeared across America and the UK.
PETA had won a huge victory in the propaganda war, and for a long time, fur has been too politically risqué to hit mainstream fashion. The fur industry is accused by anti-fur organisations such as PETA of keeping animals in crowded, unsanitary conditions, without adequate food or water, and of inhumane methods of killing the animals. In response, specialists claim that treating animals intended for the fur industry, such as mink and rabbit, in good condition is the best way to obtain good quality pelts.
Some of the most vocal animal rights groups places the wearing of fur alongside vivisection on the moral scale, however even within the fur trade there are seen to be different levels of acceptability.
Farmed animals - some 80 per cent of furs are made from farmed rabbit, mink and fox pelts - are seen as the most acceptable. These animals are raised specifically for the industry, outside a natural habitat: a recent tactic of protestors has been to release mink from farms; rather than assisting the animals, such tactics are more destructive than the trade itself, resulting largely in the animals terrorising local wildlife and eventually dying themselves of starvation.
That the animals exist purely for the fur trade is an issue itself ambiguous, but comparable in some ways to the millions of farm animals raised only to be slaughtered for their meat. It is the origin of the more exotic pelts that provokes the most outrage (images of a hunter clubbing a baby fur seal to death provoked worldwide disgust) and even the International Fur Trade speaks out against the use of endangered species.
The original function of furs - to keep people warm - has been made obsolete by technological advances. Gore-Tex can do the job of a bearskin coat far more effectively, leaving its less high-tech predecessors as luxury items- items which are a reflection of a particular style and wealth rather than function. More recently it has been hip-hop icons who have brought up the issue of fur once more. In the quest for the most luxurious, the most exclusive, the most expensive garments fur will always feature at the top of the list, with recent fans including Beyoncé, P Diddy and Mary J Blige, as well as Eva Mendes and Heidi Klum.
As a material, fur is sumptuous: warm, soft, voluptuous, sensuous. This combined with the high prices which top quality pelts command makes it one of the most luxurious materials around, positively screaming wealth and extravagance. At the high end of the market some designers, such as Calvin Klein, publicly refuse to work with furs, yet collections by Yves St Laurent, Dolce et Gabbana and Versace are once more making the most of the fabric, a phenomenon which invariably filters down to more accessible high street companies.
Interestingly, 'recycled' furs appear to be making a comeback, alongside vintage style which has been a feature of style pages for some time now. The aforementioned coat had belonged to the girl's grandmother, and had been confined to her mother's wardrobe for many years, until she had dug it out again.
"The animals that died to make the coat died a long time ago - it seems like a waste to just leave them to get moth-eaten," she said.
Senior analyst for market research company NPD Group Marshal Cohen comments on the rise of fur in fashion aimed at 25 to 45 year olds, and also that younger women are increasingly wearing furs shunned by their relatives due in part to public pressure: "They inherited the coat, but they didn't inherit the guilt," he said. If this luxury is readily available, coupled with more widespread public acceptance (or even apathy or ignorance of the issues surrounding the fur trade) the feeling is, why not make the most of an item which was made a long time ago?
While at the luxury end of the market a traditional long sable coat can run up to the tens of thousands of pounds mark, fur trims and accessories feature more strongly in winter collections year by year as the effect of past anti-fur campaigns wears off.
There is evidence to suggest that this age group of women is more accepting of fur clothes and accessories now than it has been for many years. Whether this will lead to more high profile celebrity nudity in the name of animal rights has yet to be seen.
15th Jan 2004