That is the question!
Fur remains THE most controversial material used in fashion. Here's a confession ......I have never bought a fur coat and probably never will.
Although I am a consumer of animals I don't believe that setting boundaries, limits or making selective choices makes me a hypocrite. It just makes me a bit contradictory, which is fine.
THINGS YOU CAN WEAR IN ITALY : FUR
I was about to call this post "Things you can wear in Italy", because fur is nowhere near as taboo here as it is in North America or elsewhere. Modena is an incredibly humid city in the wintertime and real fur coats are in abundance from October to March on women (and men) from 16 to 99 years old.
The fur trade in Italy is still a much respected profession and people invest upwards of 3,000 euro to buy themselves a coat and then have it maintained for ....and by years I mean a lifetime, and by a lifetime I mean multiple generations. I know women who have the furs of their grandmothers, still in perfect condition.
But what am I getting at here?
I'm getting at the fact that the world already has enough fur coats! If you go to any decent consignment, thrift or vintage store you will always be able to find a god variety of real fur from rabbit and mink to fox. If you are just DYING to wear fur why not recycle something that has already been made into a new design.
This was my mother's mink coat when she was a young woman. It is in perfect condition, and I LOVE IT. It is so warm, soft and glamorous. I take incredible care storing it away each year and I can easily say it is one of my most valuable possession both from a monetary and sentimental perspective.
In a way I am grateful that I live in Modena and can wear this out of the house without being pepper-sprayed in the eyes!! I have brought it with me to Paris and Germany on various trips but would never wear it in North America!
I love fur. I do, but I just cannot bring myself to purchase a new fur item, especially one that is cheap, meaning cheaply produced and with most likely VERY unethical means. Also, I find it hard to think about cute fluffy animals that are killed for their skin. I mean, they are cute!
Fur is a LUXURY COMMODITY
Fur is a luxury product and SHOULD come at a luxury price. Lest we forget that my livelihood and the livelihood of my entire family is based on exotic leather accessories. But alligator, crocodile and python leathers ARE EXPENSIVE....I mean mind boggaling expensive. Their leather is not a bi-product of the food industry, they are killed for their skin and because of that they are a "precious commodity". Did I mention that we primarily use exotic leather from animals that caught in the wild.
This is a catch 22! Because alligators are so valuable (from a luxury goods perspective) they are protected and so is their habitat. They need huge amounts of space to live their lives AND the better they live the more beautiful their skin and the more expensive it is! All leathers are sold based on grades of quality, the more perfect the skin the more expensive the leather.
Animals raised for fur coats are not so lucky!
Shearling? Sure Thing!
As is normal for me I always have a million different projects on the go. This month I'm launching the men's line I've been working on with my husband for the past THREE YEARS!! Plus, I am continuing to work on my own women's line which will hopefully be ready before 2017 (if I'm lucky!). The line will be primarily leather bags and accessories but I'm also thinking about a few sartorial coat designs.
Cheap fur means I'll have to use foxes or raccoons (which by the way, are 99% of all the "Made in China" fur coats!). Rabbit fur or shearling are both bi-products of the food industry, so they could be an option, but still some people go crazy. However, I HAVE noticed that no one protests all of the people wearing UGGS, which are SHEEP SKIN, not just sheep's wool...it IS THEIR SKIN! How is this different from fur?
It isn't! And leather isn't different from fur - it is all animal skin. The only thing that can be said to justify it is that some animals are killed because we eat them, and it make sense to consume their entire bodies. I don't know how to say this in a more elegant way. If you eat meat than you are in some way contributing to the leather (goat, cow, horse), fur (rabbit) and shearling (sheep) industry.
Fur vs. Feathers
So my other option for a bit of a "glamorous" decoration was feathers!! Feathers are fun, feathers are guilt and cruelty free? Oh really? This weekend I did a lot of research into the feather industry because I'm currently loving ostrich feathers (which for those who don't know Ostrichs are also a part of the food chain, especially in Italy and other European countries).
They do not kill the birds for their feathers, they simply pluck them. Alive. They pluck them alive!!! Poor things! Then they let the feathers re-grow and then they pluck them again. FOR THEIR WHOLE LIVES.
The animals are not sedated, they suffer.
So now. What about everyone who has a "down filled" coat. Those are from Geese who were brutally plucked ALIVE! I know vegans who would never eat an egg, but have down filled coats and have never stopped to think about where their warm coat came from.
All I'm trying to get at is my own personal way of coming to conclusions about what I will consume/purchase and what I won't.
The Answer Is Not Polyester
One of the arguments that I hate against using real fur or leather as opposed to "syntetic" is that it is better for the animals and environment.
Oh REALLY?
You mean that synthetic fabric for your faux fur coat, your pleather bag your eco-friendly (whatever that means) shoes DIDN'T HAVE AN IMPACT ON ANIMALS AND THE ENVIRONMENT?? Where do you think that fabric came from the magic textile fairy? It's a product of crude oil. Petrol makes plastic which makes polyurethane which makes synthetic materials.
The petrol industry is single handedly destroying the entire planet Earth including the decimation of plenty of natural habitats. The clear-cutting of forests, the irreversible pollution of bodies of water, the warming of the planet leaving polar bears starving even in the middle of winter.
In Conclusion
I don't think that the over consumption of plastic derived fast fashion items is any more or any less damaging to animals as a fur coat! I do think, however, that as a society we always look for a way to justify our choices and we are not encouraged enough to RECYCLE ! Not just your bottle of water, but your grand mother's fur! CLEAN IT, FIX IT, WEAR IT.
Wear it for a lifetime and see how many cheap "faux" coats you save the environment.
Now onto YOUR style...
#REASONSTODRESS Street Style Linkup
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