http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=380778&in_page_id=1879
There are times when I feel ashamed to be part of the fashion industry,
and this is one of them. Having just seen four weeks of ready-to-wear
shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris, it seems that come next
winter, we will not be able to escape wearing fur.
There were collars made of red fox at Burberry Prorsum, chinchilla
blouson jackets at Julien Macdonald, chinchilla trims to bags and even a
chinchilla blouse at Celine, fur hoods on cardies at D&G, fur pockets
and panels and even a fur motorcycle helmet at Prada. Nobody seemed to
bat an eye.
Certainly not the fashion editors of the glossies sat in the front row,
many of whom were sporting fur Cossack hats and collars ("But there's a
blizzard out there!" objected one when I challenged her in New York).
Not the models, who clearly were all too young to remember the "I'd
rather go naked than wear fur" campaign waged by their predecessors back
in 1992.
And not even John Galliano at Dior, who told me last year he was going
to rethink his use of animal pelts, having just received a video he
could "hardly bear to watch' from fellow designer and animal lover
Stella McCartney, but who showed just as many pieces made from real fur
as ever.
Only Stella McCartney, who showed her collection in Paris, was a fur and
leather-free zone. "It's barbaric," McCartney says.
"Fur looks much better on animals than on humans."
Now, it seems, fur has become not only acceptable but deeply desirable
again, and not just on the streets of Manhattan and Paris, where
full-length minks never really went away.
I see fur everywhere: Prince William's girlfriend Kate Middleton wore
what appeared to be a fur hat at Cheltenham last week, I spotted
Victoria Beckham shopping in Paris last month in a fur-collared jacket,
and I also see it on ordinary girls on the street.
I bumped into a vegetarian fashion assistant in Kensington High Street
the other day, and she, too, was about to waver: "I have fur envy," she
said. "Does vintage fur really count?"
Although most of our High Street stores are scrupulous about not
stocking fur (it is barred from TopShop, H&M, French Connection, Marks
and Spencer, Gap, Zara and Selfridges), it was so ubiquitous in the
designer collections I worry that, very soon, we won't be able to avoid
it.
Why was there so much fur on the catwalk? Well, next winter's
collections are all about luxury and conspicuous consumption not seen
since the Eighties.
But now that most of us can afford if not a Louis Vuitton bag or Jimmy
Choo shoes, then at least a good High Street imitation, then fur seems,
to designers at least, the only option to render their work special.
I also blame the "Carrie Bradshaw effect" for normalising the flaunting
of pelts from dead animals. Sarah Jessica Parker's character in Sex And
The City wore fur so often, and looked so, well, "now", that I - a
vegetarian animal lover - started to think: "Perhaps fur is OK ..."
before coming to my senses.
Even wearing vintage fur, as Carrie Bradshaw did, is still endorsing the
premise that an animal's pelt can be beautiful. Far better to donate old
fur coats to Peta, which has already shipped hundreds to victims of the
Pakistan earthquake.
But why is fur so deplorable? Why is wearing it worse than wearing
sheepskin, astrakhan (the black, wrinkly fur from unborn lamb foetuses),
swakara (a type of lamb skin), python or even Australian merino wool?
(Merino has, in fact, been deemed inhumane and banned by the likes of
Benetton, New Look, George at Asda and Timberland because of the
practice of "mulesing", when blow-fly infested sheep have chunks of
their flesh cut off without anaesthetic.)
Well, as someone who doesn't wear leather, I would put all of the above
in the same category, but I understand that I have to be reasonable.
I know that Julien Macdonald does not use monkey fur, or pelts from
endangered species or from farms that mistreat animals.
His spokeswoman assured me that his pelts are approved by North American
Fur Auctions, a U.S. organisation that ensures animals are treated
humanely, and Saga Furs, a similar organisation in Norway, Finland and
Sweden that supplies mink, fox and raccoon to Roberto Cavalli, Marc
Jacobs and many others.
But in most of the world, fur farms are unregulated, so chinchillas,
foxes, minks, rabbits and raccoons are kept in cramped, over- crowded
wire cages, amid their own filth.
Stressed by such conditions they often go mad, turning to cannibalism
and self-mutilation before they are killed, often by having their necks
broken while conscious, or through genital or anal electrocution. In
China, cats are skinned alive while being restrained with a noose around
their necks.
Peta insist that if you wear any fur, you are responsible for supporting
one of the most gruesome industries on the planet.
Tomorrow, the annual seal hunt (it is legal to kill pups when they are
12 days old) begins on the ice floes off Canada, supplying a huge demand
for cheap pelts. Although sealers claim the fur is a by-product,
carcasses are more often than not left out on the ice.
No one would want to eat food that came from heinous practices - hence
the rise in sales of organic meat, eggs and dairy products - yet people
wear fur as though its ethical dimension were irrelevant.
I don't expect everyone to adopt my position, but all decent people
would agree unnecessary suffering is intolerable in a humane society.
Cruelty for the sake of an extravagance, a gaudy piece of "bling", is
obnoxious.
I have sympathy for the Cree Indians in North America, who rely on the
fur trade for their livelihood, and with furriers who see theirs as a
legitimate business. But I still do not believe the industry is doing
enough to stop the trade in illegal skins.
And if you don't believe me about the inhumane slaughter of cats in
China, and you have the stomach for it, watch the video at www.peta.org.
If you don't have the stomach for it, you shouldn't even be thinking
about wearing fur.