The Independent 11/26/06 FUR TRADE Revealed: UK fur imports at record levels

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2016136.ece

The fur trade: Bloody fashion

We are buying more fur than ever. Seal skin is

now so popular that the Government is to ban

imports. The suffering this trade causes to

animals is as great as ever. So why can't we do

without it? Jonathan Owen reports

Published: 26 November 2006

 

When five of the world's biggest supermodels

posed with an " I'd rather go naked than wear fur "

placard in 1994, it was the high point of the

anti-fur campaign. Naomi Campbell, Cindy

Crawford, Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer

and Elle Macpherson had achieved celebrity

status, and their influence had others queuing up

to join the anti-fur protests. The act of wearing

fur became a social crime and those deemed guilty

risked being abused by strangers in the street.

 

How things have changed. Naomi, Cindy, Elle and

Claudia have returned to promoting fur, with just

Christy remaining true to her word. Fashion is

notoriously fickle and the famous slogan " It

takes 40 dumb animals to make a fur coat... but

only one to wear it " is being disregarded by many

designers and models. Britain's fur industry,

almost driven out of existence in the 1990s, is

back - and thriving. It has been quietly

restyling fur to appeal to a new generation of

customers.

 

An investigation by The Independent on Sunday has

revealed that more than a thousand tons of fur

worth £41m came into Britain last year. The

British Fur Trade Association claims that retail

sales of fur have risen by a third in two years.

In London, one furrier, Hockley, is reporting a

45 per cent increase in business. Global sales of

fur reached a record £6.6bn in 2005, according to

the International Fur Trade Federation.

 

Concern over the comeback is so great that the

RSPCA is to mount a major new anti-fur campaign

early next year aimed atfashion-conscious 15- to

30-year-olds. An RSPCA spokesman said, " There are

concerns that people may be starting to buy fur

in ignorance. Although full mink coats may be

still ethically out of bounds, the fur industry

is going for trim and trinkets. Most consumers

often don't know what they are buying, and would

be horrified if they realised the suffering

involved. "

 

Stella McCartney, in an interview with this

newspaper, said, " There's nothing fashionable

about a dead animal that has been cruelly killed

just because some people think it looks cool to

wear. The continuing use of fur is still a real

problem in the fashion industry and there is an

issue with people out there assuming that fur

trim is fake when most of it is real. "

 

More than 50 million animals will be killed for

their fur this year, most of which will have

spent their short lives in miserable conditions

on fur farms before they are killed, sometimes

being skinned while still alive.

 

The World Society for the Protection of Animals

has joined the calls for action. Major General

Peter Davies, the charity's director general, is

calling for a boycott of fur, blaming the fashion

industry for fuelling a rise in sales " by

flaunting it all over the catwalk " .

 

Yet the " fur fatwa " of the past is no more. High

profile designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier,

Prada, and Roberto Cavalli regularly celebrate

fur in their catwalk shows and defy the

attentions of animal rights activists. A

generation has grown up without being exposed to

the mass-media shock advertising campaigns that

helped launch the anti-fur movement in the

Eighties.

 

Campaigners are concerned that people need to be

constantly reminded of the cruelty involved in

fur. But issues like climate change and global

poverty have taken centre stage.

 

" I think there has been a fall-off in

consciousness and fur has crept back

insidiously, " said the style commentator Peter

York. " Fur trim is just a texture; it is not a

pelt or mass of pelts, and simply does not look

like fur. "

 

Mink and fox are being joined by an array of

other animals. One of the most notorious is

karakul lambskin, worn by stars such as Keira

Knightley, which is made from the pelt of

new-born lambs that are killed days after birth

or even taken from the womb. Growing numbers of

seal skins are also being imported and the

Government is so concerned that it is to back a

ban on the import of all sealskin products. This

comes just a week after the European Union

announced a ban on dog and cat fur from China,

one of the world's biggest fur exporters.

 

Undercover animal investigator Peter Joseph (his

details have been changed) has visited several

mink and fox fur farms in Norway in recent

months. He describes what he found at one mink

farm.

 

" People think of these places as farms, but they

are really more like animal warehouses, where the

animals are there for one reason only - to be

killed for their coats.

 

" In one dimly-lit cage in a corner of the shed

was a large mink. I couldn't help wondering how

people who buy fur would react if they could have

seen what I did. This particular animal could

barely move. It seemed to have resigned itself to

its fate and just lay there - its eyes swollen

from the ammonia fumes from its urine and faeces

and an open wound on its head. "

 

A spokeswoman from the International Fur Trade

Federation claims that the popularity of fur is

increasing due to people making up their own

minds about the issue and " reappraising natural,

sustainable materials with modern techniques " .

 

But Mr Joseph is trying to forget his experience

of a fur farm. " If I close my eyes I can still

see them there. Walking away from the farm was

one of the hardest things I have ever done. "

 

Additional reporting by Marie Woolf and Sonia Elks

 

Nicole Richie and the rabbit fur jacket

 

WHERE AND WHEN: Book signing in New York, 2005

 

WEARING: Grey rabbit fur jacket

 

COST: Estimated £1,000

 

CRUELTY FACTOR: Rabbits are farmed in terrible

conditions. A large proportion are bred and

killed purely for the fur and the RSPCA says that

people should not assume that rabbit fur is

automatically a by-product of meat. In the wild,

rabbits are roaming social animals that live in

burrows. In a cage on a fur farm they are denied

this freedom and are usually killed by having

their necks broken. The use of rabbit fur in

costume is first recorded in 13th-century

literature.

 

Dita Von Teese wears mink

 

WHERE AND WHEN: Rodeo Drive Walk of Style Awards, Beverly Hills, March 2006

 

WEARING: Mink cloak

 

COST: Anything up to £8,000

 

CRUELTY FACTOR: About 85 per cent of all mink are

farmed, something that is incredibly stressful

for these wild animals. They live for just six or

seven months before being killed; common methods

include gassing, electrocution or beating them to

death. They are perhaps best known for their dark

brown fur, which turns white at the chin and runs

to black at the tips of their tails. It takes 60

to 80 minks to make a fur coat. Young tend to be

born in May. They are dead by December.

 

Kate Moss's seal boots

 

WHERE AND WHEN: Leaving a London restaurant in March 2004

 

WEARING: Mukluk boots

 

COST: About £200

 

CRUELTY FACTOR: Mukluks are a soft boot made of

reindeer skin or sealskin and worn by Inuit. The

sealskin is taken from seals that are clubbed to

death at two weeks old.

 

Sophie Dahl chooses mink and white fox

 

WHERE AND WHEN: Fragrance Foundation Awards, New York, April 2005

 

WEARING: White mink coat, fox fur collar

 

COST: Estimated £7,000

 

CRUELTY FACTOR: Millions of mink and fox endure

terrible conditions in fur farms, where they live

their short lives in cages so small that they can

barely turn around. White foxes that are caught

from the wild in steel-jaw traps are in so much

pain that some bite off their limbs in order to

escape. Many die horrible deaths before the

trapper arrives to kill them. Those on farms are

gassed or killed by electrocution: electrodes are

clamped in the mouth and the rectum.

 

Keira Knightley opts for karakul lambskin

 

WHERE AND WHEN: British Independent Film Awards in London, 2005

 

WEARING: Black karakul lambskin coat

 

COST: Between £3,000 and £6,000

 

CRUELTY FACTOR: One of the cruellest forms of

fur, according to animal welfarists. Undercover

investigations have documented how heavily

pregnant ewes are killed and their unborn lambs

removed for their coats. Newborn lambs are

routinely killed after a few days, before their

velvet-smooth coats have had a chance to uncurl.

The fur is also called Persian lamb, astrakhan

and broadtail. It is also used to make high-end

hats, carpets and rugs.

 

 

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2016135.ece

 

The Fur Trade

 

Real fur: Dressed to kill

Revealed: UK fur imports at record levels, 'IoS' investigation shows

Top designers and celebrities defy the anti-cruelty lobby

By Jonathan Owen and Marie Woolf

Published: 26 November 2006

 

Record numbers of Britons are buying real fur,

overturning decades of campaigning by activists

who say substitutes should be worn instead.

 

Sales of fur clothing have hit £500m for the

first time, up 30 per cent on two years ago, with

£40m of new fur products being imported every

year.

 

To the fury of the anti-cruelty lobby, the

championing of real fur by supermodels and top

designers is sending sales soaring, with, say

protesters, young animals being clubbed and shot

by hunters as a result.

 

The fashion designer Stella McCartney last night

told The Independent on Sunday: " The continuing

use of fur is a real problem in the fashion

industry, and there is an issue with people

assuming that fur trim is fake when most of it is

real. "

 

More than a decade after top models posed in

placards with " I'd rather go naked than wear

fur " , new figures show that sales of fur have

risen by 30 per cent in the past two years.

 

Figures compiled for the IoS by HM Customs and

Revenue show that almost one million tons of fur

are being imported each year - and that the

global market for fur has hit almost £7bn.

 

Fendi, the luxury retailer, has led the move to

" rebrand " fur, selling products using dyed and

shaved fur to make it look more appealing. Other

top stores have followed suit, with designers

such as Julien Macdonald, Jean-Paul Gaultier,

John Galliano and Alexander McQueen staging shows

with models in real fur.

 

The British Fur Traders Association said that

sales of fur have risen by a third in two years,

while Hockley, a London furrier, is reporting a

45 per cent rise in business. Concern over the

comeback of fur in the UK is so great that the

RSPCA is preparing to mount a major new anti-fur

campaign early next year.

 

The World Society for the Protection of Animals

blamed the fashion industry for fuelling the

rise, saying catwalk shows were making fur seem

acceptable to the public. " Fur-bearing animals

are forced to endure life in cruel cages and

are... slammed against concrete floors and

skinned alive, " said a spokesman for the charity.

 

Such is the scale of alarm at the rise in fur use

that the Government is moving to ban all imports

of harp and hooded seal products into the UK.

 

This has been prompted by a sharp increase in the

past year in the amount of seal skins imported

into Britain. Official Customs figures show that

the amount of seal pelt imports rose from 3.6

tons in 2004 to 4.1 tons last year. In 2004, the

UK imported almost a third of the value of all

Canadian seal skins into the EU. Protests

continue over the Canadian seal hunt, where

hundreds of thousands of animals are clubbed or

shot each year. Campaigners claim that some seals

are still alive when they are skinned.

 

 

 

--

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