Would You Rather Go Naked? Genuine fur has lost its status and remains in limbo in the fashion world as fauxs take over. By Amanda Kwon. Illustrated by Jessi Olarsch.
F
ur was long upheld as a status symbol in fashion for decades, but its prestige has taken a turn in recent years. A hallmark of luxury fashion since the early 1900s, fur coats were embraced by Hollywood starlets and socialites, who established them as a symbol of status and wealth. In the early 20th century, powerful fashion magazines, following Vogue’s lead, often wrote off faux furs to their readers as a poor imitation for those who could not afford the real thing. However, as the demand for furs grew beyond the elite crowd, imitations boomed. As one fur expert told The New York Times in 1924, “Whenever a fur becomes fashionable, the trade hunts for a substitute, because the girl in Sixth Avenue wants to look like the fashionable woman on Fifth, and we must help her find her way.” By the 1970s, fur coats gained full-fledged rivalries with animal rights activists, led by organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). PETA’s most viral campaign targeting fur in fashion featured models Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell in the nude with the slogan “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” plastered over their bodies. Since then, PETA has continued to be one of the world’s leading animal rights advocacy groups, particularly against fur, exposing cruelty in fur farms and publicly shaming those who wear it. Today, the crusade against fur persists, particularly among the new generation of consumers who are much more conscious of the brands they buy from. Last June, Yoox Net-a-Porter, the Italian online fashion retailer, surveyed 24,000 of its customers prior to announcing its furfree policy and found that 72 percent said social or environmental considerations drove their purchasing decisions at least some of the time, and 58 percent said having more information about the product’s ethics and sustainability would influence their buying choices. To meet these shifting attitudes, luxury brands have been decreasing their use of fur or attempting to avoid the controversy, at the very least. This past July, Fendi, originally a furrier, rebranded its Couture Weeks show from haute fourrure to haute couture, no longer drawing attention to fur in their collection. Though fur was still present in its collection, it was significantly less prominent compared to the brand’s past seasons. Though many companies have gone fur-free to be more ethical or appeal to consumers, fur is clearly not going anywhere. The global production of mink, which accounts for 85 percent of the global fur trade, has grown dramatically, reaching 84 million pelts in 2015, and the export of crocodilian skin has rebounded at full force since the global recession and the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on American alligators. In 2016, almost two-thirds of the women’s fall collections in New York, Paris, London and Milan fashion shows included fur clothing. Even with this high production, the introduction of high quality fauxs and mass production of real fur have undoubtedly compromised the prestige of genuine hairs. The executive director of Humane Society International UK, Claire Bass, explains that many companies rely on the price point and quality to differentiate real from faux, but with fauxs becoming more and more convincing, this becomes difficult. Even a cheap price tag does not immediately exonerate a product, because countries
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The WALK Magazine
Fall 2018
such as China and Poland have mega-fur farms that produce real fur very cheaply. As a result, there have been many cases of products from fast fashion brands that claimed to be fur-free found when actually containing real fur, further confirming that genuine fur is no longer associated with luxury and high price tags. But the alternative to fur is not so innocent either. Imitation hairs are typically made from petroleum-based products (typically plastic), which create pollution during production and release fibers when washed. A polyester-fleece jacket can lose 1,000,000 fibers per wash that eventually find their way to the ocean. Additionally, fake fur cannot be recycled, so clothes are dumped in a landfill without any chance of biodegradation. This, combined with improvements slowly being made in some fur farms such as 24/7 drinking water, and toys for the animals, have shown that at times, real fur may even be more sustainable than faux fur. With the tension between the sustainability of real versus faux fur comes the understanding that mass outrage and consumer decisions are rarely fully informed. Rarely are consumers armed with facts and figures to justify which is more detrimental to the environment. This leads to the biggest reason why furs are such an easy target: their extravagance. The very grandeur and blatant luxuriousness for which furs were coveted are now characteristics rejected by younger consumers who strive for ethical and political consciousness. On the other hand, leather, also an animal byproduct, is a much less contested material, perhaps because it is associated with practical and utilitarian aesthetics. As Marylyn Carrigan, professor of consumer ethics at Coventry University, said, “people often make assumptions about the responsibility of products, i.e. that somebody somewhere up the supply chain is looking after the ethics for them.” Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, and when consumers feel outrage, they will make themselves heard. 2