Vintage View: Fur

MY aunt’s house was a regular B&B to rescued creatures — from punctured gerbils to foundering ponies.

Still, high days and opera nights she went forth clouded in an ankle length white fox coat worthy of Anna Karenina.

I was surprised to notice a handful of vintage clothes’ specialists featuring fur at a number of national antiques fairs recently. Was there a market for vintage pieces after all these years of fur being consigned to the great skip of collective outrage?

In Dungarvan, ‘Dress to Impress’ an impressive vintage boutique was fresh open for business. I troubled co-owner Kay McCarthy for an insider opinion. She made an elastic glance without turning her head towards a three-quarter length mink perched furtively low on a rail.

“It’s on consignment,” she explained apologetically. My fingers involuntarily raked the swansdown soft collar. Disciplined feelings broke cover and swooned.

“I already have a demand for real fur,” she went on, “one of my regular suppliers of top end vintage has a room. I just can’t bring myself to go in there.” I discovered that pieces from the 1970s are most commonplace, and re-made into collars, cuffs and sleeveless jackets. Earlier garments remain highly prized for their quality and mystique.

At another Munster charity shop, the young assistant leaned in, her eyes widening in dark pools of secret joy as she admitted to having fur coats at home. She revealed in discreet whispers that she had regular calls looking for coats, jackets, stoles, anything in a genuine pelt. Head on, was even admissible.

I recalled my tiny grandmother’s slender mink collar — the stiff, crumbling jaws on one unfortunate, seized on the tail of a companion. The bulging glass eyes were oddly alert as it bounced on her bony breast on the way to Mass.

It could be said that by buying vintage you are at least not contributing to the on-going suffering of the fur trade, but are you promoting it? Would you really want it to be mistaken for fake, and are you willing to take the horrified gawks of some of your friends when you appear in that fur trimmed swing coat?

It’s worth thinking the subject through, as the ‘well, I don’t care, it’s beautiful’ school of explanation rings as callous indifference, getting straight under human skin. Trumpeting a moral imperative to recycle a fur or to suggest that others do the same and don’t buy new, is a canny approach, but unlikely to calm the egg-lobbing PETA membership.

Identifying real fur: Fur from rabbit to mink, has a silky feeling that’s hard to replicate. Run your finger tips through it to determine if it’s real. Identifying labels from a furrier are obviously helpful too.

Real fur is backed on leather obviously and on the reverse it will be sewn together as pieces or pelts.

The leather of real fur will be tougher and resistant to a small pin. If you can’t easily pass a point through and everything else seems right, it’s real.

The fur may shed a little as with any natural coat. Go to a reputable dealer who will give you a fully detailed receipt to assure you of the fur’s character and authenticity. Furs from animals on today’s protected species list are not to be traded even in their vintage ancestors. Fur can suffer through natural aging, use and improper storage. The real condition should be judged skin deep, under the lining not by the softness of the fur. When you hold the coat, you should be able to scrunch it up like supple, fine cashmere, with no obvious bendiness. The shoulders should be soft and giving without any creaks. Hides can rot or dry out and become brittle. Often coats and stoles are damaged not only by rips and wear at the seams, but by the waves of perfume sprayed over them through the decades.

A fur coat needs to breathe in a cool, dry environment and the very best coats are stored by furriers for their clients. At least keep them away from moth balls, plastic bags and the light. Be careful when wearing not to stress the fur with a heavy shoulder strap. Remove your coat while driving, as the repeated action of the seat-belt and graze of the car controls can damage your fur. Spray yourself but not your furs with perfume. Finally, wrap your neck in a silk scarf before putting on your coat, jacket or wrap, to keep your oils from touching the neck lining.