This winter, you couldn’t move for the number of faux fur coats on the high street. Independent brands like Shrimps, Helen Moore and Charlotte Simon blew up with rainbow coats in every candy-coloured stripe you could think of. And unlike the fake furs of old, these pelts felt loads plusher than their earlier animal-friendly predecessors. (Seriously, have you tried wrapping up in a Shrimps coat? It’s like getting a full-body hug from a very brightly coloured fox).
But one guy is valiantly resisting the call of faux fur: Karl Lagerfeld. The Chanel designer also heads up Fendi, and he’s celebrating his 50th anniversary with the Italian house by designing a big fur-centric couture show. It’s called haute fourrure and it’s scheduled for a primetime slot during Paris Couture Week in July – which means that we’ll see a collection full of suffocatingly thick high fashion furs smack in the middle of summer. Don’t ever say fashion doesn’t make sense.
’In the past, Fendi did only fur,’ Lagerfeld explained to the New York Times, ‘Then they started to do ready-to-wear and funny fur [read: faux fur], but this was 40 years ago. Now, it’s time to do the highest level of couture fourrure.’ You can probably tell by now that Lagerfeld’s not exactly a fan of the ‘funny fur’.
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‘For me, as long as people eat meat and wear leather, I don’t get the message [about the problem with fur],’ the Fendi designer shrugged. ‘It’s very easy to say no fur, no fur, but it’s an industry. Who will pay for all the unemployment of the people if you suppress the industry of the fur? The hunters in the north for the sable, they have no other job, there is nothing else to do.’
He added: ‘I hate the idea of killing animals in a horrible way, but I think all that improved a lot. I think a butcher shop is even worse. It’s like visiting a murder. It’s horrible, no? So I prefer not to know it.’
Other than the fact that professing to ‘prefer not to know’ is basically Karl Lagerfeld sticking his fingers in his ears and singing ‘la la la not listening’, he does raise a interesting conundrum about real fur. I’d wager that we all know a few vegetarians who would never touch fur but happily wear leather boots. Hey, I’ve happily cuddled baby lambs and calves at Hackney City Farm and still gone for beef kebab on a night out. Maybe that makes me a fat hypocrite. But real fur kind of creeps me out; it’s almost too soft. After a lifetime of fake fur, the idea of slipping into a 100% genuine animal pelt is just a bit too close to the skin.
According to PETA UK director Mimi Bekhechi, Lagerfeld is just trying to sidetrack from the real issue here: the cruelty of the fur industry. ‘Perhaps Karl Lagerfeld would like to enlighten the public as to which killing method is not horrible – anal electrocution, bludgeoning or simply skinning animals alive, all of which are common practice in the fur industry that he so shamefully supports,’ she tells me.
‘As for trying to deflect attention away from fur and onto the cruelty of butchery for meat – if he really agrees that meat production is cruel, perhaps he'll stop eating what he can't wear or sell.’
So should I feel guilty about even wanting to wear fake fur? Mimi says that PETA doesn’t have a problem with the textile itself – just how it gets produced. ‘It's time for new innovative designers, working with cutting-edge technologies, to produce exquisite vegan fabrics that don't bleed, like new favourite Shrimps, and move fashion out of grandma's closet and into the future.’
Having said there, there’s still a big question mark about the ethical credentials of fake fur. In November, the British Fur Trade Association claimed that animal fur was a ‘better environmental choice’ because faux fur was made from damaging petroleum products and uses three times more energy. (Take these claims with a pinch of salt, obvs: they’re called the British Fur Trade Association for a reason.)
Still, there’s something slightly grotesque about Karl Lagerfeld turning an entire animal farm of minks into furry handbag charms and baubles – especially when business is already booming for a viable alternative. So I say, stuff the real fur and stick with your fakes. And if you’re already sick of all kinds of fur, I hear shearling is the next big thing.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.