Why fur is back in fashion
Emily Laughland says man-made fibres can never compete with nature
For the first few years of my teenage life I kept my fingers crossed that my Russian second cousin-in-law once removed would turn up her toes and leave me her collection of fur coats.
She did both things in time for my 16th birthday. A box arrived, big enough to hold Damien Hirst’s shark. It entirely blocked our narrow Victorian entrance hall. It reeked of naphthalene, for which I should really be grateful: it had done its aspic-work, preserving some beautiful thick fur coats, which I proceeded to wear very thin for the next five years.
My favourites were the astrakhan coats, a grey one and a black one. Astrakhan is one of the most evocative furs around. It brings to mind central Asia, where people have been wearing it for hundreds of years. If you go to the Uxbridge Road tomorrow, you will see many a dignified Pakistani gentleman in his shalwar-kameez and astrakhan hat shuffling contemplatively along. And it provokes, too. Three years ago astrakhan shot to fame when Stella McCartney attacked Madonna for wearing it. Quite rightly, it is perceived to be the most un-PC, non-big game fur around: it is made from unborn lambs. The debate over whether those lambs are stillborn or aborted keeps temperatures in the proand anti-fur camps high.
Is fur really necessary? As necessary as Handel’s Messiah or the ha-ha — in other words, not really; but life would undoubtedly be poorer without it. There is no other material that combines warmth and beauty in the way fur does. Of course there are plenty of sophisticated natural and synthetic fibres that have been developed to keep us warm, but not all of us want to look like Canadian skiing champions; not all of us like luminous, futuristic garb. A glorified macintosh will never replace the unique markings of a racoon or lynx pelt or, importantly, the feel of it: we just can’t compete with nature.
Even in Russia, where last winter Muscovites endured temperatures of minus 35°C, fur-wearing is not an entirely practical exercise. Even there it is an expression of femininity, sexiness, luxury. Fur was reviled by the Bolsheviks, who erased it from the revolutionary aesthetic — the new utilitarian look as invented by Lyubov Popova had no hint of fur anywhere (Lenin, however, couldn’t quite resist and often sported a jaunty astrakhan hat). The backlash against that communist puritanism after perestroika was huge, and Russia is now one of the world’s biggest importers of fur. However, Russia still holds one export trump card: the Russian sable — still the most desirable fur around and a fittingly chic partner to Russia’s other trump card, oil. Sable at auction costs between £200 and £500 per pelt and you need about 40 pelts to make a coat. Today the sight of a Masha or Natasha with her inimitable stormy pout and sable coat tantalisingly disguising two miles of perfect leg is simply a magnificent thing. I know many men who have lost their hearts, minds and wallets over it.
People often ask me if it is safe to wear fur again in this country. And my answer is: yes, though to some extent it depends on who you are. In their heyday the anti-fur protesters tended to target rich middleaged-to-elderly women. They didn’t attack young men in sheepskin coats or sexy rappers like Puff Daddy. That is because the war against the fur trade is, at least in part, as much a class war as an animal rights war. Rather like the war on hunting, it is a statement against aesthetic elitism. It was, in the late Eighties, a violent war and it still has a strong hold on the imaginations of those who remember it. Quite understandably, too: the Animal Liberation Front’s logo of a terrorist in a balaclava clutching a puppy must rank as one of the 20th century’s most frightening and perverse images.
Of course not everyone who has doubts about fur is aligned with the extremist paramilitary wings of animal liberation groups. It is as natural to worry about the living conditions of a mink as it is to feel twinges of conscience over battery hens. The poor treatment of animals, whether those bred for meat or for fur, is never acceptable. Nor is it, in fact, in the fur trade’s interest: badly fed, badly treated animals do not have beautiful fur. The fur trade is highly regulated and animals bred for fur are generally better treated than those bred for meat. Countries like China, where animal rights, like human rights, fall well below our standards, are being lobbied by organisations like the British Fur Trade Association to review and eventually improve the conditions on their fur farms, though it is, inevitably, a slow process.
The anti-fur movement has, moreover, lost much of its momentum because the profile of an average fur buyer has changed so dramatically in the past two decades. In real terms, fur has dropped massively in value compared with other luxury goods, to become something accessible to the averagely wealthy fashion consumer. Forty years ago a mink coat cost the same as a Jaguar; now the Jag outflanks the average mink coat by a factor of five — a mink coat will set you back between £3,000–£7,000. A sable coat, however, can cost up to £40,000. A bigger market has meant that the fur trade in 2003 was worth $11.3 billion. Many top designers now use fur in their collections and these days you can buy something with a fur trim on it almost by accident. But more significantly, the fur coat itself has undergone a metamorphosis in the past 15 years that can be summed up in one phrase: No More Shoulder Pads.
When I asked Frank Zilberkweit, a director of the British Fur Trade Association, what he felt the most important recent change in the fur fashion industry had been, he answered without hesitation, ‘Subtlety’. Italian fashion houses like Prada and even London’s own Hockley on Conduit Street, W1, make fur coats and jackets for an enlightened generation of fur-wearers — fitted, understated and easy to wear. These garments, which range from kidskin bomber jackets to tailored, thigh-skimming mink jackets, don’t even look like distant cousins of the Alexis Colby-style power fur coat. In some cases, they don’t even look like fur. Sheared mink, one of the industry’s most exciting innovations, looks like a very deeppile velvet and is almost as light as velvet, too. Knitted fur (where 3mm-wide strands of fur are knitted into scarves) is stunning; it looks and feels like a net of woven feathers and costs only a few hundred pounds.
Never have the words ‘feel-good factor’ had more super-literal relevance than when describing fur. Facials, Botox, psychotherapy, yoga — why bother? ‘Every woman who wears fur feels better about herself,’ says Zilberkweit. It’s not often I trust a man on fashion diagnosis, but I’ll make an exception in this case.
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