by Clare Taylor (Thu Dec 03, 2009)
As I grew up there were some things that I swore I would
never do in life. The sort of things that it's easy to get impassioned about
when you're young, impressionable, and probably not very well informed. Some of
them stuck as I got older - not many, perhaps, but a few.
The biggest principle I've always sworn I would stand by,
come hell or high water, is that I would NEVER wear fur. Now, any fur die-hards out there will be asking
what the difference is between wearing fur and wearing leather shoes, to which
I say; the rest of the animal used for the shoes can be utilised elsewhere,
whilst to kill an animal only for its coat when there are now perfectly good
man-made alternatives seems terribly wasteful to me. I would like to think that somewhere in the
forests of northern Canada and Russia there is a thriving industry in Beaver
Pie (cue teenage sniggers) and Mink Pasty, but somehow, I doubt it.
However, when she realised that our move to Russia was
imminent and not simply a ruse to stop us committing to the next family weekend
away, my mother-in-law threw a curveball at me. She announced that she had two
fur coats - well, one fur coat, and one fur-collared coat - that she had
inherited from her grandmother and which she never wore, and which she would
like to pass on to me.
What to say? Well, I would like to say that I refused her
kind offer and told her no, no, and no again. I didn't of course. Curiosity got
the better of me, particularly since the words ‘mink' and ‘silver fox' were
being bandied around, and my principles quivered a little. It wouldn't hurt to
look, surely? So she pulled out what I can only describe as two ‘venerable' looking
coats, and I tried them on, secure in the knowledge that there was no way they
were going to fit.
Clunk. My principles hit the floor. They did fit.
Not perfectly; the sleeves in one were too short and there
was a rip in the back, and the collar of the other could do with some TLC, but
neither coat was in such a dreadful state that I was able to say ‘thanks but no
thanks' on the spot. So I did what any non-fur wearing principled person would
do in that situation: I took the coats home with me for further consideration
and left my principles in their place, for safe-keeping.
Oh, the lies we tell ourselves... ‘They're vintage! In fact, not vintage - they're
practically antique! You're not harming
any animals if you wear these; in fact, if anything you're being incredibly
environmentally aware because you're recycling!' I even found myself discreetly
Googling ‘fur coats' when no-one was looking to try and identify exactly what
types of fur they were. Not that I cared, really, but... were
they mink and silver fox? Or something else? You never know; the colour-ways on
the fur coat even looked like they might be... sable! Wouldn't that be
something! A vintage sable coat! New ones sell for $10,000 dollars!
Principles? What principles?
But worry not, animal
lovers, there is a happy ending to this story. I took the coats - in the
interest of research only, you understand - to a furrier in Regent's Park. Even
as I walked into the store lugging my ‘antiques' I knew I had made a terrible
mistake. Hanging all around me were the Genuine Articles. Fur coats so soft, strokable
and sumptuous that they made what I was carrying look like dish rags.
Which is more or less what the absolutely charming gentleman
in charge of the shop told me they were. In a matter of seconds the single rip
I had spotted in the back of the fur coat was shown to be one of many, and he
explained that due to the coat's great age it would not only cost more to
repair than it would to buy a new one, but that it would probably rip again the
first time I put it on and sat down in it.
Which brought me to my next question; what type of fur was
it? ‘This old thing? (he didn't actually say that but I caught the inference)
Oh, this is musquash. We've got loads of those coats in the basement. If you
want to replace it, it will cost you around £150.'
I refused his kind offer, of course. Well, I have my
principles to think of, after all...
