To wear or not to wear fur?

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This is not an ethical problem the Russians seem to agonise over. All species of mammal large and small seem to have given their lives to adorn the backs of the Russian elite and not so elite. In fact the most popular seems to be the ubiquitous blond-tipped fur surrounding black parkas for males and females alike.



I have subsequently found this fashion to have made its way over the channel and to have found out that the fur is actually imitation fur. Not so, many of the fur coats spotted on young and old throughout the Eastern bloc. Not surprising really; the intense cold, freezing the very marrow of your cheekbones made me think more than once about the ethics of wearing fur!



My mother kindly offered me her mother's fur coat before I left Oz. Full length but moth eaten, I turned it down for several reasons, not all of them sensible maybe. I placed it carefully around my shoulders and whilst moving, tufts of fur dropped off the brittle skin. The coat must have been over 90 years old and had travelled all over the world from India to England, from England to Australia, moth balled but not immune to the ravages of time and the dry Australian heat.



Where would Lara have been if she wasn't swathed in fur on the horse ride to Yuriatin? Or was that just in my imagination? Or how I thought I would have been when taking the dog sled ride? Their wind protection qualities are indisputable, their warmth second to none. Microfibres cannot imitate their properties but the fake furs look good. But is it ethical to wear 'fake' fur? A vexed question I would do well to ignore.



I must admit the furs were beautiful. Many colours, designs and striations. Obviously they would have looked as beautiful on their original owners and for a vegetarian I could not possibly condone the breeding of animals for their skins alone. I haven't heard of many people using fox meat or eating lynx steaks, have you?

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Comments

[Ross]

To fur or not to fur
Heard a great poem at a poetry slam. It went like this: After her mother had died, the poet found a fur coat in her mother's wardrobe. She did not want to waste it: a mink or several had given their lives for that coat. So the poet was happy to argue that by a kind of cosmic compensation - she, the poet had been vegetatian for 30 years - she could wear the coat. In fact she wore it to perform her poem in. With its reddish tinged the fur matched her hair. Trouble was otherwise she never got the chance to wear it. She lived in the subtropics and it was too warm for fur.