The Joy Of Fur

There no garment ever quite as beautiful as a fur coat. Or, indeed, as warm. I do not mean the horrid and peculiarly decadent gorilla coat which Pete Burns was seen wearing on Celebrity Big Brother, and for which he was reprimanded by a Government Minister: although any Government Minister (it was Jim Knight) spending time watching this drivel is seriously under-employed.

No: I mean a proper fur coat, made of mink, or sable, or fox, or beaver: one which falls to the ground in exquisitely-cut skeins. See the Italian or the Latin American women wearing them around smart parts of London: no Botox, no face-tuck or beauty treatment can make human skin glow like mink.

Seldom will you see British women wearing these furs. They have them all right: they are in storage somewhere, or locked away at the bottom of the wardrobe. “I’d love to wear it,” they tell you, during a cold snap. “But I’d be terrified.” What could happen? Well, someone could give you a dirty look. Animal liberationists could say something nasty to you. Oh, for heaven’s sake, are you a woman or a wimp?

Yes, but fanatics could attack you, physically. In that case, they’d be up for assault and, we hope, looking at a custodial, sunshine. Fur is perfectly legal: and utterly natural.

When terrorism works, at any level, it is odious: and shames the person terrorised as a coward, as much as the fanatic doing the terrorising.

Actually, the experience of wearing fur very seldom provokes hostile reactions. The more usual reaction is one of friendliness and spoken contact. I don’t, as it happens, possess a full fur coat, but I have a cashmere coat with a lavish fur collar and in winter I often wear a fox-fur hat. The natural instinct of friendly individuals when they see a fur is to come forward and caress it. Little girls adore fur, quite spontaneously. Little old ladies, too. Oh, they say, you look like Anna Karenina in your furs. It is a point of communication. It is also a point of information. I had believed the fur I was wearing was Russian fox (purchased in Macey’s of New York, a grand shop for furs, because it is not too grand or intimidating) but recently several women have said they thought it was probably wolf. Ah, Brother Wolf, really? That you should serve me so charmingly for winter protection, and for a radiating softness around the face. Such a comfort on long train journeys, to repose on wolf fur.

Occasionally, there is a hostile glance: every now and then a doubtful remark. “I hope it’s not real,” a harmless, hippy-looking youth called to me in Hammersmith underpass. “Oh, my dear, yes, it is! And you know what – those poor Russians fur workers really do need the employment!” A French beggar did, it is true, call me a capitalist: if only you knew, I thought.

To be sure, fur should not be cruelly farmed, and animals should not be gratuitously caused to suffer. There should be proper controls in place to inspect its production, as there should be with any other natural product, from shoe leather to handbags to jackets and slacks made of skin or hide. And we should not hunt or exploit endangered species – leopardskin does, in any case, look better on a leopard. But the use of other furs, such as the fox, in the production of garments is a positive environmental service. At the height of the fox-hunting debate, it was agreed by one and all that foxes have to be put down somehow. Well – put them down for fur coats!

The most exquisite mink coat I ever remember was worn by a lovely woman I used to know in the movie business. She had once been associated with the old Hollywood Left targetted during the McCarthy mania. Her dazzling mink coat came from Moscow.

Should Communists wear mink coats, I asked naively? “Honey,” she said. “Nothing’s too good for the working girl!”

Oh God: send another spell of cold weather so I can remember to repeat that to the next beggar who calls me a capitalist.

The Guardian 18 January 2006