Street safety
PetroneIla Wyatt
Iwant to begin this column by thanking all those readers who have written to me supporting my anti-McCartney stance on fur. I had promised to put my money where my mouth is and on my trip to Hungary purchased as many dead animal pelts as possible.
My Aunt Lili — the sane aunt, if you will recall — informed me that an office worker was trying to sell her mink coat and was prepared to accept £.50 for it. But my aunt advised against this bargain on the grounds that the coat had one sleeve missing and perhaps it would be an aesthetic error to emulate the Venus de Milo in fur.
So she sent me to a second-hand fur shop in the middle of the city. I had never seen anything like it. It was, as it were, pelting down. There were Persian lamb coats in every conceivable colour; wall-to-wall minks; sable capes that looked as if they had long ago been flung off the shoulders of Maria Callas. Then there were skins whose provenance one could only guess at. Bear? Beaver? Rabbit? Mountain goat? Hungarian farm worker?
What also seemed odd was that they all seemed to be in very large sizes. I tried on one coat, the shoulders of which were so broad that I looked and felt like Henry VIII. Another protruded at the behind, giving one the appearance of a disabled dromedary from the side. The Persian lamb coats were better but some of them appeared to have been half sheared by time.
Eventually I found a grey fur coat that was both clean and cost only 125. We spent the next two days guessing what animal it was made of, but no matter. When I showed my friend Elizabeth Karolyi she said, 'Oh, but you wouldn't dare wear that in London. They'll kill you. I bet you that you won't dare wear it.'
Ha. We'll see. I replied. I wore it getting off the plane at Heathrow but then people may have assumed I was a stupid Eastern European immigrant who didn't know any better. The real test of courage would be to wear it all over London while affecting a posh British accent. I decided to begin gingerly, with a walk in my local park in north London. No sooner had I begun what I though was a graceful Garboesque perambulation than Elizabeth was proved right. I was immediately attacked — by two dogs. One of the animals pulled so hard at the hem that I feared the lining would be ripped out — mine that is. The owner was very supportive, however. 'They probably think it's still alive,' he said.
Better then to try a location where no dogs were allowed: Waitrose in Marylebone High Street. It has an organic section so surely there would be some mad-eyed animal rights activists wandering around. I was right. By the cauliflowers a woman with fish-like eyes accosted me dramatically. 'That coat,' she screamed. I raised my chin in a posture of defiance. 'That coat. You should have an alarm on it. It's so beautiful.' I was not expecting this. Where was the indignant rage? The frightful wrath? I trotted over to canned foods hoping I would find it there. There were two hippy-like young couples who didn't turn a hair. It was the same in the beer and lager section, only I met the first woman again who insisted on planting a kiss on my cheek.
Obviously I must take myself off to a traditional place of protest such as Oxford Street. The idea was to begin my walk at Selfridges and end up at Tottenham Court Road. The street was teeming. No one looked particularly friendly. Surely five or six people would feel like giving me a kick, at the least. For the first 20 metres nothing happened. So I tried waving bits of coat in the hope of making myself more conspicuous. A woman in a track suit and a Puffa jacket stopped and stared. 'What's that?' 'It's fur.' 'Oh,' she said uninterestedly and went on her way. Still I refused to concede defeat. Into the HMV shop near Tottenham Court Road I marched. In the DVD section I pushed past an angry-looking young man. 'You could have said sorry,' he complained. 'What, for my coat?' I asked hopefully. He looked baffled. 'No. For pushing past me and not saying excuse me.'
Reader, the streets of London have been made safe for fur again.
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