Thursday, October 16, 2008

Feather and Furs


I was at the hair stylist the other day, and browsed through a copy of the fashion magazine, Elle Canada. Had it been closer at hand, I would have grabbed People Magazine (honestly, I only read it when I'm getting my hair done). So ... I'm looking through Elle when I come across a huge spread on the latest "fashions" in fur (article not available online). How disappointing to see page after page of fur scarves, coats, collars and gloves. Surely they looked far better on their original owners!

Shaking my head, I flipped a few more pages until I came upon a another feature -- "Bird call: Fashion Takes Inspiration from Feathers". The subtitle is incredibly heartless: This season, no creature is safe from fashion's greedy grasp - that means you too, cockatoo. It was bad enough that the designers had stripped the skin off unfortunate animals, but then they'd gone and plucked the feathers from a variety of birds -- all in the name of fashion.

I'd thought things had changed -- that we had changed. When did it become politically correct to wear fur again? Why are the designers trying to lull the next, unsuspecting generation into believing that cruelty to animals is okay?

In the 80's, there was a commercial spoof on Saturday Night Live called "Fur: You Deserve It" that showed fur-wearing women being hunted and shot in a park -- a vivid image that's stayed with me for 25 years.

It's obvious we haven't learned anything in all that time.

6 comments:

Jan said...

Fortunately, I see these clothes only in fashion magazines. (Yes, I sometimes go early for appointments so I can read them without buying them.) I don't see them in the circles where I travel. I am happy to be unfashionable.

Anonymous said...

Here in NYC, and especially in the cold winter months, you do see a good number of people wearing real fur.

But as was the case decades ago when it really was considered "vogue," only a handful of people will actually compliment someone wearing real fur here these days.

Most people (like me) simply see these people "fashionably" walking around with a bunch of dead animal skins on their bodies -- and roll their eyes at how TRULY "asinine" it looks.

Lynn Sinclair said...

I don't see many fur coats either, Jan. The same goes for feathers. Unfashionable is good.

Lynn Sinclair said...

The thing that bothers me, Georgie, is that, in addition to the designers, the magazines and the models are encouraging young women to accept wearing fur as the norm. They're in a position to take a stand on this, but they bow down to the fashion gods.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, those who can afford couture have decided they don't care if it's correct or not to wear animals.

Heck, most of them got their money because their husbands stole from the public anyway and got golden parachutes! Which is why the economy is in such a mess in the first place.

It's that attitude that they're all "above" the real world. Ew.

Lynn Sinclair said...

Devon, maybe with the recent economic crisis, the fur-wearers might have to re-evaluate their need for yet another fur coat/collar.