,,, real women have curves - and they wear furs.
Posted on 01/06/2004 12:58:11 PM PST by qam1
Nothing, not an impending gala nor the chill of winter, can tempt Betty Jean Bavar to dig out her once-beloved mink coat. "I don't know if it's a reaction to popular sentiment toward the killing of animals or just that my lifestyle is much more casual today," said Ms. Bavar, 61, who lives in Baltimore. "I only know that I have stopped wearing fur."
Her daughter, Adrienne Bavar, however, tells a different story. "I don't have a problem wearing fur," she said. "I'm not like, `Oh, my God, I have on a dead animal.' " Ms. Bavar, 29, a public relations consultant in New York, owns a fur-lined army jacket and wore a white mink stole on her wedding day last year. Her friends agree that fur is fine, she said, so long as it is not showy or dated, conjuring an image of Joan Collins in her "Dynasty" days.
"Girls my age are into a touch of fur here and there — a little fur collar, a vest or an Audrey Hepburn-type poncho," the younger Ms. Bavar said. "Those are all things we would wear."
There are indications that the fear of ostentation and concerns over the slaughter of fur-bearing animals that troubled the baby boomers do not afflict many younger women. On the contrary, style-conscious women in their late 20's and 30's seem to wear fur unabashedly, heeding fashion more than conscience.
While there have been few if any formal studies of generational attitudes toward fur, anecdotal evidence and some numbers suggest that younger women have few qualms about fur.
According to the Fur Information Council of America, a trade group, more than half the fur sold in this country is bought by women under 44, and close to 20 percent by women under 34. The average customer age today is 35, down from 45 five years ago, said Keith Kaplan, the executive director of the council.
"Women under 35 are very unaware of the complexities of the issues around fur from the past," said Marshal Cohen, the senior analyst for the NPD Group, a market research company. Mr. Cohen, who based his conclusions on store interviews with consumers in the last 12 months, noted that many younger women wear furs discarded by their mothers. "They inherited the coat, but they didn't inherit the guilt," he said.
Some of those consumers may have succumbed to a craving for luxury, reinforced by celebrity role models — pop stars and models like Beyoncé Knowles, Mary K. Blige, Eva Mendes and Heidi Klum, who unlike an earlier wave of celebrities, would not rather go naked than wear fur. They have no inhibitions about prancing down red carpets in their latest fox or mink.
Other students of consumer attitudes suggest that flaunting pelts can be a badge of rebellion. "Wearing fur is a quick way for you to feel superior to your mother," said James Twitchell, the author of "Living It Up: Our Love Affair With Luxury."
Fur sales in 2002 were about $1.7 billion, up from $1.53 billion the previous year, the fur council said. Sales have almost regained the record high of $1.8 billion of the late 1980's, before the animal-rights movement and a series of warm winters took a toll on the industry.
Fashion, too, has played its part in the comeback, with styles aimed at young customers who make no distinction between fur and conventional ready-to-wear. "The average customer for our type of fur, which is sporty, is 25 to 40," said Nick Pologeorgis, a manufacturer who works with leading Seventh Avenue designers, including Michael Kors. To many of these customers, he said, "fur is just another piece of clothing."
But Ingrid Newkirk, the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, disagreed that the animal-rights movement has lost a generation. "There are plenty of young women who are revolted by the idea of fur," she said. She suggested a visit to her organization's Web site to read the testimonials of young women expressing a revulsion for fur.
Ms. Newkirk conceded that by offering new, relatively inexpensive styles, the fur industry has successfully tempted some younger women. Indeed, today there is a widening selection of furs with casual styling or fur used as an accent on bomber jackets, vests, hoodies and the like. Many furriers also offer skins that masquerade as something else. "A lot of the fur we make looks like velvet or a yarn that's been knitted to resemble a sweater," said Melissa Gellman, a spokeswoman for J. Mendel, a purveyor of luxury furs and fur accessories. The company's slogan, "This Is Not Your Grandmother's Fur," refers to innovations like sheared mink passing itself off as velvet.
At prices below $5,000 for full-length rabbit coats, or several hundred dollars for coats with fur collars, sweaters trimmed with fur and fur scarves and hats , many women have found that fur is an affordable indulgence, compared with a traditional sable coat, which can run into the tens of thousands. "You can get a rabbit coat for $80," Ms. Newkirk of PETA lamented, "basically the price of a few packs of cigarettes."
Of equal concern to animal-rights activists, she said, is the adoption of fur as a status symbol. "Our major struggle at the moment is to get out the message to people in the hip-hop community," Ms. Newkirk said, "people for whom fur is a prized acquisition in much the way the Cadillac was two generations back."
Even among those who wear fur, some feel compelled to rationalize it. Julie Stone, the director of broadcasting for Victoria's Secret, recently bought a full-length fur on eBay. "Knowing it's recycled makes me feel better," Ms. Stone confided. "I'd like to say it wasn't killed just for me."
Last week, waiting in line at a SoHo restaurant, Gina Carameros, 39, who was visiting from El Paso, echoed that sentiment. "I do have a fur coat," Ms. Carameros said, "but it is recycled, and that helped my conscience a lot."
More typical, however, was the comment of Mia, her 13-year-old daughter, whose only quarrel is with women who wear fur in a way that looks old-fashioned or pretentious. Fur collars rate a thumbs up. Street-sweeping coats do not. Mia herself wore a poplin parka edged in simulated lynx, and she expects one day to acquire a real fur of her own. "The issue for me," she said, "is not, Don't wear fur. It's, Don't wear too much."
NYTimes Multimedia: Slide Show: Young Women and Their Furs
| Rank | Location | Receipts | Donors/Avg | Freepers/Avg | Monthlies | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 52 | Netherlands | 20.00 |
1 |
20.00 |
12 |
1.67 |
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Maybe that's because there was no complexity at all. Fur is warm. Winter is cold. That's why animals wear them!
,,, real women have curves - and they wear furs.
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Ok, let me get this straight: a woman under 35 is old enough to vote, old enough to have held a job for many years, old enough to have several, maybe many children, old enough to own a home...generally be a full-fledged citizen of our nation. But she's too young to understand the complexities of the stupid fur issue? You're not kidding; the hubris of the Worst Generation is limitless...
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