No More Furriers

Looking into faux fur made me wonder if there were still furriers active in the UK. I can only find a single person still working in this ancient industry.

If you go through the phone book you'll find many of them. But these may sell fur coats and hats but not make them or offer repairs. It seems the whole business of making genuine fur products has moved to China.

It also died a death in the west when there were many violent clashes between furriers and animal rights groups back in the eighties. It sparked off when people woke up to the fact that some near endangered species were being killed for their fur.

Animal rights protesters broke into some mink farms in the UK and released these animals. Unfortunately, from an environmental point of view this was the worst thing they could have done. The mink is a highly aggressive non-native species of the UK.

So, fake fur is seen much more than the real thing. And as it happens, these synthetic furs are not only realistic but in most cases just as warm.

Fortunately, there is no problem with wool as this doesn't mean the sheep is killed; just sheared. Looking at some faux fur puffers reminds me of those parkas worn by the Mods back in the sixties.

In that case the fur was real, and this was mostly rabbit. The faux fur today looks very much like soft grey rabbit skin, but we are assured it isn't.

Faux fur can be seen on many items of clothing and is the trim on puffer jackets, boots and hats as well as some gloves.

Puffer jackets can have genuine goose down inside or manmade fibres. The goose down ones can be expensive as revealed in some newspaper article about the First Lady when she recently went to Alaska.

Hers was over two thousand six hundred dollars. But for us mortals, manmade fibre can be just as warm and a fraction of that price.

For faux fur puffers http://dressedinlucy.com/