Faux means fashion

Rebecca Gonsalves

As fashion victims go, Cruella de Vil is a particularly gruesome example. Her rabid pursuit of the perfect pelt led her into some particularly hot water. She’s an extreme example, but by no means unique. Old habits die hard and fur is still seen as the last word in luxury in many markets, used liberally, and literally, head to toe (check this season’s favourite fur-lined and trimmed shoes). However, as a buying public at all levels of income becomes increasingly aware of the true cost behind clothing —moral and environmental, as opposed to just fiscal — a market is booming for synthetic fur and leather chosen for ethics rather than economics.

Stella McCartney is the most obvious example — especially since her autumn/winter collection, which introduced gargantuan, shaggy ‘Fur Free Fur’ coats, each prominently labelled with just that slogan. The vegetarian designer has long used synthetic suede and leather in collections she dubs “vegan”, but for a long time she has shied away from faux fur.

“I’d done fake fur many, many years ago,” she says — her final autumn/winter 2001 collection for Chloé, for instance, was awash in the stuff —“and I’d really questioned whether it was appropriate to do it and if it was necessary. Because fake fur now looks so real, I was afraid that I was promoting real fur, but I created these fur-free labels that will be on the outside of products so you can actually tell people it’s not real. We are a house that thinks that fur is not relevant. It looks old-fashioned.”

Hannah Weiland’s work could never be described thus; her colourful faux-fur clothing under the label Shrimps has won plenty of plaudits since it was launched in 2013. “I specifically decided to use faux fur for a number of reasons: My personal taste and views, price, colour and creative flexibility,” Weiland explains. “I was fortunate to come across a mill producing the highest-quality faux fur available. I think it is a misconception that faux fur is not a luxurious product, given how incredible modern technology is, you can now essentially produce faux fur with the same level of softness, quality and warmth as real fur, which makes the argument for real fur much harder.”

— The Independent