When was fur fashionable

Like pig or chicken farming, fur farming is about keeping animals in captivity their entire lives and then killing them. It entails practices many people would consider unthinkable. Some fox farmers, for example, kill their animals by anal electrocution.

Industrializing our relationships with animals has also created problems. And in the auction house sorting process, pelts from as many as farms, good and bad alike, can end up together in the same lot. The European fur industry says it is working on a fix, but its new WelFur program must first inspect and grade thousands of farms. He checked the nest box attached to each cage for size and the amount of straw for winter insulation.

He examined the animals for body condition, injuries, and repeated back-and-forth motions that indicate stress. He inserted a tongue depressor in each cage to see if the animal responded with fear, aggression, or curiosity.

A WelFur visit requires about six hours to inspect a cage sample for 22 features. Either way, will people who buy fur actually care? Not just for fur, but for everything we buy. They will ask at the shop, Is the animal welfare OK? But he believes they will. I came away with a contrarian idea. The ambition in the animal rights movement has always been to ban fur farming. It just moves production to areas where no rules apply.

At the auction I asked a broker who has a mink farm in China if that country has made much progress on animal welfare. Banning fur farming also does nothing about other livestock farming we take for granted. Yet most of us go on eating meat, drinking milk, wearing leather shoes, and otherwise exploiting animals, as humans always have, on a scale that makes the fur industry a sideshow.

People in the fur trade like to dwell on the implied hypocrisy. All rights reserved. This story appears in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. A mink, killed by carbon monoxide, heads to a warehouse. The carcasses, which have little use other than to make fertilizer, are loaded in a bin.

Farms such as this one in Poland can process thousands of mink a day. Hundreds of caimans, measuring about 20 inches, splash into a pool at this farm in Colombia. A breeding male at an ostrich farm in Thailand, irritated by the presence of visitors, runs to the fence, spreads his wings to demonstrate his impressive size, opens his beak but emits no noise, and starts to dance.

Share Tweet Email. Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, Excellent book on fur, clothing, and Inuit culture and society. Pelts: Politics of the Fur Trade. Nigel Markham. National Film Board of Canada, An example of the environmental movement's critique of fur fashion industry.

Steele, Valerie. Fetish: Fashion, Sex, and Power. New York: Oxford University Press, Authoritative text on fetishism and fashion, including fur fetishes. Class, Gender and Sex Distinctions In the Middle Ages the exclusivity of some furs meant that they were used sparingly. Political Protests and Fur Fashion Design Venus In Furs The symbolic power associated with the fur garment in the Middle Ages ensured its value for contemporary fashion as a mark of distinction in the making of luxury commodities.

Inuit Dress and Social Class Sanatujut: Pride in Women's Work: Copper and Caribou Inuit Clothing Traditions Inuit now use combinations of traditional and southern-style garments to convey group affiliation, gender, age, role, status, social organization, interaction with neighboring groups, and changing technology?. See also Muffs. Bibliography Emberley, Julia. Fun Faux Fur Fashions. By Cheryl Cirelli.

Matted Cat Fur Solutions. International legislation, such as the Endangered Species Act of , coincided with a number of anti-fur protests that continued into the s and s, led by organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals PETA. The anti-fur movement reached a new level when PETA featured models Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford posing nude in its campaign, promoting the slogan, "I'd rather be naked than wear fur.

The faux fur industry was not prompted by compassion for animals, but rather the need for fabric manufacturers to make quick-and-easy money. Fake fur, much like fake gold and diamonds, provided people with ways to emulate the upper classes. Imitation fur continued to be mentioned by fashion magazines in the late s, but an article from in Harper's Bazaar warned readers that, "At all times, imitation fur is a dangerous investment.

In , Vogue published another article that prophetically declared that the popularity of automobiles and outdoor activities had resulted in the depletion of fur-bearing animals, and, "as in all cases where man has discovered that he can convert natural resources into gold, it will eventually cause their complete extinction. This article was actually talking about selling cheap muskrat in place of mink, cat instead of seal or raccoon instead of bear, but it's obvious that a convincing and affordable man-made alternative would be an easy way to get rich.

Thus the competition for creating fabrics that rivaled Mother Nature had begun. While it was normally assumed that fake fur was only worn when the real thing was out of reach, jazz-age animal lovers had already embraced the faux long before PETA was even formed.

One article from Women's Wear Daily in reported, "Many titled and society women of Great Britain are identifying themselves with animal defense associations and are displaying outward and visible signs of their activities in this direction by wearing artificial furs instead of the real skins.

However, the imitations that were being offered — mostly made from wool or rayon or mixtures of these fibers on a mohair foundation — were a bit too good, and for this reason, the article says that there was a demand for so-called "bad" imitations of fur by society women who ironically had enough money to spend on the best of the best.

PETA protestors, Since people had been trading animal fur throughout most of recorded history, the introduction of man-made alternatives in the early 20th century certainly brought tension to the clothing industry.

However, a leader in the faux fur industry went on to explain that that a woman who buys a pricey coat of real fur will have to pay for its upkeep and eventually alter the style to keep up with new fashions. On the other hand, she could buy a new artificial one each year to keep up with styles and not pay as much money. By the s, synthetic fur garments had become extremely popular and affordable, coinciding with the age of plastics, microwave dinners and other conveniences of the modern age.

European Luxury Furs in the 11 th Century As early as the 11 th century, fur was worn as a symbol of wealth and social status rather than just out of the need for warmth. By the s Fur Became More Affordable and Casual By the s, most film stars were spotted wearing luxury furs in movies and in their private lives.

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