To Fur or Not To Fur

New Look Faux Fur Cape | Dorothy Perkins Faux Fur Gilet | River Island Faux Fur Coat | ASOS Faux Fur Long Coat | Next Faux Fur Jacket | Miss Selfridge Faux Fur Jacket

It's that time of year again, when we're all thinking about being warm as possible. The Winter coats are being wrestled out from the back of the wardrobe and the mittens are being slipped back on to keep our fingers from getting frost bite, but there's that timeless debate that always comes back to bite us in the bum: to fur or not to fur?

Fur, faux and otherwise, is a timeless trend and keeps coming back, for another round, year upon year but whether it's real or fake, do we agree? If you're a vintage vixen, the likelihood is you'll have come across something baring fur, and real fur at that, as faux fur, once, was never an option. Women used fur as a sign of wealth and of status; the bigger the coat, the further up the hierarchy you were and this seems to have translated into the 21st Century. I often believe people wear fur to show they're taking a risk, they're someone who is big and bold enough to give such a controversial statement a go and not for sheer warmth (which is what i look for in a coat!) The high street are doing a brilliant job for those of us who don't feel comfortable wearing the real thing, but are perfectly happy to wear a damn good doppelgänger. For me, it's not wearing the product, it's supporting the deliberate harm and killing of animals for fashion. I don't know if i even feel comfortable with wearing something that has once been living, whether it's been killed for the garment or died naturally, there's just something about wearing something that once had a heartbeat that doesn't sit well with me.

There's always the argument: how would you feel if humans were killed for the purposes of fashion? It's inhumane. So why is killing an equally living thing for fashion acceptable? You're still wearing skin. As i've said, and exampled above, the high street do plenty of brilliant lookalikes if fur is something you love, but don't want the guilt on your shoulders (literally) In all high street stores, fur is featured in everything from collars to entire coats to gilets, they've picked up on a trend that without being faux, is controversial and unwearable to a lot of the public; but by creating fake versions, they open up the trend to so many more people, therefore create a better profit.

It's safe to say that the style of fur is loved by many, but not the once living, breathing leopard, or rabbit, or mink. The high street make it more accessible to the public; personally i own two! But vintage stores are determined to keep the real fur trade alive. There's something about fur that i feel is timeless, and something that we maybe shouldn't loose forever. Those beautiful vintage role models wore fur without a care in the world, because they didn't know any different. In this educated world, if we didn't know what we do, fur would still be all over the high street. Lets hope that this trend is around for many years to come, but real or faux?

K|xo