The Love Of Faux Fur

Fur from animals as human clothing and fashion item is a fascinating one

, and has happened in different phases. Our prehistoric cave dwellers would have seen a fur pelt as an essential garment for getting them through the depths of winter or surviving the night-time temperature drops the Savannah. It would also have been an important symbol in showing strength and status in a village community. After all, if you could bag yourself a cheetah skin, you were clearly a good hunter and therefore a desirable mate, and offering such a skin to a potential bride or her family would show an ability to gather surplus, another desirable quality.

The requirement for fur as a means of keeping warm diminished as people devised new materials, but something about its desirability persisted, even if only in the eyes of fashion fans. But by the time the nineteenth century was over, furs were the preserve of the rich, a mink coat being the epitome of luxury. Furs of lower quality would also have been budgeted for by people lower down the social scale, and would passed on down through families. One of the oddest items of clothing in fashion folklore would fall into the fur category. The fox stole, essentially the complete body of a fox with all the insides removed, was frequently worn as a kind of scarf in high society. How such a trend developed is almost incomprehensible.

The third part of fur's fashion history is the avoidance and imitation stage. Although the hippies of the sixties had often been seen wearing furs, this period was also to see the start of the general public questioning the ethics of destroying animals for fashion, especially when some species were in danger of extinction. By the time the 1980s were upon us, the anti-fur movement had a loud voice, and although the super rich and James Bond honey traps would still proudly go fur-lined, they were not typical of the general view.

If you wore a mink coat on the city streets and there was a chance it would have ink thrown on it, and the famous poster of a lady pulling a blood-dripping coat behind her with the slogan "It takes up to 40 dumb animals to construct a fur coat, but only one to wear it" found huge publicity. Busy nightclubs started turning fur wearers away, and ten years on, the poster equivalent was of naked actors and models, saying they would rather go naked than wear fur and most of us agreed. Although fashion designers still try to rehabilitate fur from time to time, you can't help thinking it's an attention seeking stunt rather than a fashion statement.

Today the vast majority of the furry fashion we see is made from faux fur, an artificial version that has all the fluffiness and heat retention but none of the ethical issues. Over the years there have been some beautiful examples of faux fur fashion, and vintage clothing stores typically have a large range of coats and jackets to choose from. For all its chequered history, there is still an innate desire in the human psyche to covet fur, and if we can have the fashion without the unsavoury aspects, there's no reason to abstain any more.

by: Callum Asterman

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