Opening image: Ann-Margaret Olsson in 1960
Words Eloise Hallo
Fur, though newly a topic of contention, boasts a fashion history longer than near enough any medium in current trend. Burlap and linen may have their moments, but neither can quite contend with fur’s impressively enduring over 2000-year span of both practicality and, most essentially, glamour. It is this matrimony that secures the textile’s place in a proverbial hall of fame to its kind, changing in each era and in so defining, more often than not, its own catchment of trend. Indeed, not as if some clutching spinster to the fashion world but, in each decade, a young and modern adaptation — a veritable queen bee. Yet, it is this very spotlight that’s seen recent years call into question the morality of such outdated a cloth. In a world of growing conversation surrounding sustainable consumption, the reign of fur had to, at some point, meet expectant opposition. And this, my reader, is where we find ourselves now: stuck debating faux or no, if either is truly better or if, in fact, the choice to wear fur altogether — real or otherwise — is an abject show of man’s need to express dominion over things. It wouldn’t, however, be much of a debate sans context, so, let’s explore the history.
The history of fur would be more aptly termed pre-history. The evidence that Neanderthals and other early humans donned the textile is, though there, unnecessary; such fact is widely known and rather tightly bound to the layman’s idea of caveman’s costuming. Religious scripture and other later writings support both that hides and skins were worn and raise, for the first time, the idea of such mediums being preferable — because, to paraphrase, why wear fig leaves when you could wear arctic fox? This fork in fur’s path, from humble practicality to agreed superiority — though seemingly minor — meant an important change. Not so dissimilar to our society today, when considered better, so soon follows exclusivity, which is precisely what happened in medieval England. The Apparel Act of the 1480s decreed that fur and leather were to be worn and decided based on and by class. Countrymen had to prove a yearly earning over £40 to wear anything other than lambskin, and sex workers, ‘common harlots’ as the bill lovingly terms them, could be easily discerned by striped hoods they were made to wear and their furless-ness, being banned from wearing it within city limits. These laws, which professed the intention of situating the ‘good and noble’ from, what one must assume, the bad and ignoble, tied the issue of fur to that of social class and set a precedent which persists today.
Such status symbolism is most evident when we catapult forward from the 15th century to the 20th. Though coats and other garmentry of the early 1900s would be in no way as illustrious as furs to follow in the ’50s and ’60s, in both eras, women, primarily, were socially situated by both the animal and amount of fur they could afford, some being deemed so precious that they could be insured alongside jewellery, and inviting mid-century idioms like ‘a touch of mink’, which described a wealthy woman, adversaried by ‘a little bit rabbit’ which cruelly condemned those otherwise. And, as is often true in fashion history, such sentiments were confirmed by stars of the silver-screen. Once characterised by bashful pin-curled celebrities who could well-expend fur at its extremes, like Eartha Kitt and Elizabeth Taylor, it became, not least a thing of a luxury, but a thing of celebrity itself, and as such, all the more exclusive.
Josephine Baker in 1930
Ann-Margaret Olsson in 1960
Modern conceptions of fur don’t stray far from this imaging. In art, as in life, many of our famed fashion figures are characterised by their incline to adorn the medium. Anna Wintour, Margot Tenenbaum (of Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums), and the supermodels of the 90’s perch likened in this respect. Simply, fur’s tantalising and long-endemic status symbol firms its place in high fashion cyclically, in a way we colloquialise by terming it ‘timeless’.
And, though ‘timeless’, its place in contemporary society has not been seamless. It is, in fact, easier these days to find fur-related controversy than it is to find fur-endorsing runway; who’d have thought a little red Dulux could so thoroughly ward off our eccentric fashion overlords? Most notably, as I am indeed now noting, was PETA’s slew of celebrity terrorism, whereby paint was thrown at glamorously fur-donned ladies like Joan Rivers to emulate the bloodlust of the industry, bringing new life to the term ‘red scare’.
Adjoining such gimmick in sentiment and shock-factor were the notorious ‘Gisele Fur Scum’ trespassers to the Victoria’s Secret show of 2002. Julien Macdonald, Jean Paul Gautier, and Burberry would join this fateful list: all three houses having now taken hiatus from its use. These activist successes bore a new kind of popularity to the ethical concerns which had been otherwise scoffed off by the suggestion that critics simply couldn’t afford such luxuries, that they had — if my reader will forgive me — FUR-M‑O. PETA’s 1994 Campaign ‘I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur’, featured some of the era’s highest paid models, and clearly part-time hypocrites, publicly condemning its wear, leaving us with the founded irresolution that these days high fashion isn’t quite sure how to feel about fur.
In 2018, Gucci banned fur in its collections; Zara pledged to do the same by 2020; and, since 2015, fur sales decreased from a 40 billion product to one, in 2019, worth 7 billion USD less. We would be remiss, however, to forget that figure remains double what the global fur industry was worth in 2011, meaning PETA’s crusade has not been as effectual as appearances let on, and that some of us can’t help but reach for the same ‘touch of mink’ as our foremothers.
Trend predictions dictate fur is back in a big way this winter, and new arguments that criticise fast fashion’s mentality toward the production and overconsumption of micro-plastic-based faux fur, as an alternative, remind us that the carbon footprints of such alternatives prove they’re not always preferable.
The sentiment remains that, to some, the concept of wearing fur and animal hides more generally is abject and primitive, particularly when there exist so many substitutes. Unfortunately, compounding is it that the medium cannot be removed from its ties to status and class division. Be it then faux or not so, ‘fur’ upholds the contention it’s held since early occupation of fashion in our world; a reminder of man’s need to boast dominion over its planet and that with which we share it, whether it be ’common harlots’ or the humble lamb. Perhaps it is enough to buy vintage, as I will admit I do, or perhaps fur should be avoided altogether. Regardless, it’s arctic out there, so whatever coat you wear, wear one! And, perhaps all we can say with certainty is that mink’s moral objectivity is to be decided by its wearer.