Fur Is Back Says the Wall Street Journal

Fur has had a rough few years. As household budgets locked down during recessions and Covid, fur and luxury goods in general tanked. (Overall prices are still so high, some call Starbucks, Sevenbucks.) But Covid was especially harmful to the fur industry.

Why? Mink farms were hotbeds of the virus, infecting humans in two-way transfers. Minks are integral to the zoonotic transfer of pandemic-capable viruses like Covid and Bird Flu which is why animal researchers love them. In Denmark, “depopulated” infected minks rose up from their graves like zombies due to the gasses their corpses emitted leading to a call to cremate the mammals.

But now fur is back, says the Wall Street Journal despite campaigns against it like those from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Of course , the fur industry has fought back for sales “tooth and nail.”  In response to the criticism that fur makes women look fat, belted fur coats became abundant—pun intended—offering the svelte allure of grandpa’s bathrobe but I digress. Fur makers rolled out artificial colors––“misty rose” minks, neon blue foxes, coral rabbits—to appear to be the humane ‘fakes” designed to replace real pelts.

And some offerings were unsightly noted New York Times reporter Eric Wilson covering Fashion Weak one year. He admitted there would be few customers for Chris Benz’ yellow sheared mink peacoat which the newspaper shows paired with a yellow leather mini skirt and yellow tights atop spike heels. Perfect for work––you’re hired.

Nor would people likely rush out to buy Thakoon Panichgul’s knit fox cape in garish orange and green—“like the feathers of a parrot” wrote Wilson—and ribbed orange knitted fox bomber—so fugly you want to apologize to the animals twice: once for killing them and a second time for mutilating them into these fashion iterations in which they will endure in perpetuity.

Would people buy Peter Som’s broadtail coat from premature or newborn Karakul lambs—think about that—with its never-say-excess iridescent fox color? And model’s bare legs to prove the final obscenity—it’s not even about the warmth? Will people buy monkey fur popularized by Salvatore Ferragamo and revived at major shows? Will they wear man’s closest relative?

Fur Sales Are Dead Like Their Donors

 The fact is that fur demand is so flat that not one pelt from Nunavut Canadian seal kill a few years sold at Toronto auction according to the Northern News Services. Combined with other unsold pelts, that made 11,000 seals, mostly babies, killed for no reason. Mink, beaver and coyote pelts were selling for one dollar in Pompey, New York according to published reports. (Raccoon and opossum pelts for 25 cents.) Luckily most trappers aren’t in it for the money but for the “fun.”

Buy This Grotesque Garment—Please?

The fur industry has decorated any surface that could be adorned with fur from a collar to a lining to the cuff of UGG-like boots and Canada Goose joined the fur spree for a while.

In light of Prada, which has offered garments from pony and seal and fur coats on the runway with tails––realistic!–– nothing seemed to be over the top at Fashion Weaks.

Fur trade groups contend that people wear fur for warmth not ostentation and that fakes run a distant second in looks and “breathability.” (The industry also calls fur a “fabric.” Can someone give these people a biology lesson?)

But ethics aside, where would you wear a fur “fabric” anyway? To work where you have enough enemies as it is? To the gym where your hobo bag barely fits in the locker? To dance and night clubs where you’ll have want to watch it all night? On a date where you’ll feel like an overdressed idiot at a movie or restaurant? (And turn off the date if he’s politically correct?) To visit your family once a year? To the opera?

The sad fact is the only place you can wear a fur is shopping for a new fur. Which is why the second-hand stores are full of them.

This is an excerpt from the just published Food, Clothes, Men, Gas, and Other Problems.

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