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Paris Fashion Week recently drew to a close, marking the end of the twice-yearly international event with all the right boxes ticked: copious air kissing and champagne quaffing, tick; bright young things in the front rows (notably Katy Perry, Lily Allen and Emma Watson), tick; protest by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), tick.
Fashion Week and anti-fur protests (in this case at Donna Karen’s New York show in September) have become as synonymous as hysterical weeping and The X Factor.
Last year, fur-loving designer Julien Macdonald and heiress Paris Hilton, who had opened his show, were pelted with flour by protesters; and Peta has stormed the catwalks of designers from Christian Lacroix to Burberry in order to raise awareness of the brutal realities of the fur trade.
But despite the hard graft of anti-fur groups it seems sales of fur have been steadily climbing. The latest data available from The International Fur Trade Federation, covering retail sales for the 2005/06 season, shows a 5.6% increase on the previous year. Of course, statistics vary depending on who provides them, but one thing is clear: fur is a viable industry.
If you’re old enough, you may remember that back in the 1970s and early 1980s fur was promoted in glossy magazines and ads as the epitome of status and glamour. Then came the hard-hitting campaign by animal rights group Lynx. Shot by David Bailey, the most celebrated image showed a fur coat leaving a trail of blood as it was dragged across a floor by a model. Underneath ran the stop-you-in-your-tracks slogan: ‘It takes 40 dumb animals to make a coat but only one to wear it.’
It caused shock, outrage and, for the first time, widespread unease about wearing fur. Donning a mink coat was no longer seen as conferring status upon its wearer but as a provocative act pretty much guaranteed to attract verbal abuse at best and a bucket of red paint thrown over its wearer at worst.
But fashion is notoriously fickle and the desire for fur appears to have come full circle. There are a few theories as to why this might be, including slick and shrewd marketing, celebrity endorsement and increased accessibility.
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In the past, fur would generally only be found in high-end coats, hats and stoles. These days it’s still used for ostentatious style statements (witness Mary J.Blige and Kanye West in their ankle-nudging coats or Madonna in a £35,000 coat made from the skins of 40 chinchillas) but it is also increasingly used for trimming comparatively inexpensive items, everything from vests and scarves to jackets, handbags, soft furnishings and even trinkets. With new techniques such as precision dying, fur ‘knitting’ and laser cutting, manufacturers have also updated the look and feel of fur in an attempt to make it more acceptable to fashion-savvy consumers. These days, fur is more street than elite.
Then there are the models who have shrugged the fur taboo from their slender shoulders. Kate Moss, Lily Cole, Gisele Bundchen and onetime Peta pin-up Naomi Campbell, who back in 1997 famously modelled for the charity’s ‘I’d rather go naked than wear fur’ campaign, are all comfortable being papped in a pelt.
Sure, this could mean negative press for them, but for many stars the only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity. Even the famously vegetarian and environmentally-conscious actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who you wouldn’t have thought needed the money, has signed as the face of luxury Italian label Tod’s, appearing in their autumn campaign draped in fox fur while plugging ostrich and alligator skin bags. Such well-known devotees help create an aura of fur wearing being not just prevalent but acceptable.
The North American Fur Association claims that more than 400 international designers have included fur in their collections over the last six years. Most recently, Giorgio Armani reneged on his promise never to use fur again – and how. His latest collection included everything from fur-hemmed skirts and jackets to fur coats for babies.
Today, fur is even promoted as an ethical choice for green-minded consumers, with its supporters declaring that it is recyclable, sustainable and can be worn for generations.
So, fur is stylish, fur is environmentally friendly and fur is increasingly accessible, and that is why it is back in fashion.
Or is it?
Peta managing director Ingrid categorically disputes that fur has enjoyed a renaissance. She told me: “It [fur] certainly hasn’t regained favour, it is simply that just as killing a real bull on stage for opera gets press, the more desperate designers know that using fur, possibly whole animals on models’ heads, virtually ensures media coverage they probably won’t otherwise get on the merits of their designs alone.
“It’s a very competitive, cut-throat world not known for ethics, but such displays do not convert from the catwalk to the high street, where people are very conscious to choose faux or no.
“Witness the fact that top designers and fashion houses, including Vivienne Westwood, Ralph Lauren, Francisco Costa for Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Comme des Garcons, Betsey Johnson and Stella McCartney are all totally fur-free. Of course, now that fur is a symbol of cheap goods rather than a luxury good, it is tempting for some manufacturers to use it as trim tat and lining, particularly the cheapest fur like rabbits who are killed in appalling ways for their skins.”
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And if, as Ingrid contends, fur isn’t back in favour despite the best efforts of the fur trade, glossy magazines and the fashion industry, why might this be?
For starters, fur farming, which has been outlawed in Britain since January 2003, is inherently, unspeakably cruel. The RSPCA, regarded as the conservative voice of animal rights, has said: “Our concern would be that if sales of fur are going up, cruelty is going up.”
Fifty million animals worldwide are killed for their pelts annually. According to the International Fur Trade Federation, 85 per cent of these will be from fur farms. One farm can house thousands of animals and, as with most intensive breeding environments, desire for profit supersedes concerns about animal welfare.
Mink, rabbit, raccoon, chinchilla and fox, the mainstays of the fur industry, live out their short lives in abject misery. These naturally timid creatures are packed into rows of tiny mesh cages with barely room to turn. Many of the animals, which in the wild may have territories of hundreds of acres, gnaw into their limbs in terror and desperation.
Death, when it comes, is brutal. Animals are dispatched in a way designed first and foremost to protect their pelts from damage: gassing, neck-breaking, poisoning and electrocution via the mouth or genitals are four of the most common methods.
And this is at regulated fur farms. In China, the biggest exporter of pelts in the world, fur farming is completely unregulated. Here animals are routinely skinned alive because it is thought to make the pelt softer, is considered easier to do and uses fewer resources than killing humanely.
A joint year-long investigation by Care for the Wild International (CWI), Swiss Animal Protection and EAST International revealed a shocking catalogue of cruelty. Racoon dogs were clubbed or had their heads smashed against the ground, the intention being not to kill but to stun them. Incisions were made to the animals’ back legs and their skin was literally peeled from their bodies, the workers wrenching their pelts over their heads while the animals screamed and writhed. Investigators observed raccoon dogs breathing for up to ten minutes after being skinned. The video exposés of Chinese fur farms are widely available on the internet for anyone with a strong enough stomach to watch them.
It’s not only wild animals that suffer: an estimated two million-plus cats and dogs are killed annually in China in equally barbaric conditions. And China is far from the only offender when it comes to using domestic animals for fur. An investigation by the Humane Society of the United States concluded that the use of cats and dogs for fur is thriving in the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries. This fur, which comes from both strays and captured pets, is often falsely labelled to disguise its origins. ‘Asian jackal’, ‘Korean wolf’, ‘mountain cat’ or products labelled as rabbit, fox or mink may have once been someone’s tail wagging or purring pet.
Then there is trapping, which doesn’t just cause the agonisingly slow death of millions of wild animals every year but also indiscriminately kills non fur-bearing animals and domestic pets. Add to this the annual sea hunt in Canada, during which more than 300,000 seals are killed for their pelts, 42 per cent of them being skinned alive according to independent veterinary reports, and you have one big, bloody mess.
Unsurprisingly, the argument that fur is an ecologically sound product is also refuted by its opponents. They say that the industry requires massive energy consumption and creates mounds of toxic waste; and that fur is not biodegradable, due to the chemicals used to stop it from rotting.
Neither the British Fur Trade Association (BFTA) or London Fashion Week’s organisers came back to me when I asked them for comments, so instead the last word goes to Peta managing director Ingrid Newark, who says:
“Anyone pondering whether to buy or wear fur, might wonder, ‘Was this poor fox or rabbit electrocuted by having a metal rod jammed into their rectum or vagina while they were fully conscious, and if I wear this how many people will look at me and be silently asking themselves just that question?’”
For information promoting the fur industry, visit www.britishfur.co.uk
For more information critical of the fur industry, visit www.furisdead.com
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