'Ethical' question

Desert Orchid

Desert Orchid

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My ailing mother-in-law succumbed last month to a combination of afflictions associated with old age (94), the last female of her generation on her side of the family to go and we're now getting round to disposing of her 'estate'.

She's of the generation for whom fur coats were as much essentials for staving off the cold of our climate as luxury items. She would have saved long and hard for her fur coat having had, at the age of eight, to bring up her younger siblings on her own after her mother died.

I know fur coats are seriously frowned upon these days but for me they were 'of their time' and shouldn't just be binned. I imagine charity shops won't touch them with a barge pole. Someone told me sporran makers recycle them but I don't see how using them for sporrans is any different from actually wearing them. I can see the point if they're damaged but the mother-in-law's is pristine.

We also have her sister's fur coat, an absolutely beautiful garment, which my wife inherited and which we value.

I was just wondering if any of you know of any way of disposing of them that would respect the hard work and toil and scrimping and saving that would have gone into purchasing the coats in the 50s (probably)?

Personally, I think Mrs O and Orchidette should wear them and ignore any rude comments but they're not so sure.
 
While a lot of people might recoil in horror, the facts of it are that the animals who’s fur was used died long before your daughter ( and possibly mrs o !!) was born. This to me makes it fine to love and wear. Not one animal will be saved by disposing of the coat and they are lovely things to wear.

Wear it, love it and sod anyone else.


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Wear them and fk what anyone thinks.

If you wear leather and/or eat meat then don't be squeamish or concerned about the opinions of others re fur coats.
 
I've just googled and there are places you can sell them to, also apparently some charity shops may take them. Someone suggesting sell them and make a donation to an animal charity maybe - or any charity that you like to support.
Not sure how many people would know if they were real if worn anyway so may not be a huge worry.

A couple of my aunties had them, but being born before WW1, them not me, different generation and different attitudes.
 
If I thought I would suit it I'd wear it myself!

It reminds me of the time my mother decided her fur coat (might have been her mother's before her) decided it was too worn. My father had a midi-length [genuine double-rectified bust-head] Crombie coat that he bought with a winning bet back in the late 1940s, paying £300 (!!!) for it, possibly on the black market. I remember he used to use it to protect me from bad weather if we were walking to/from church. He couldn't see himself wearing it any more and was talking about giving it to a homeless charity.

My eldest brother who was/is a very elegant sartorialist decided the two garments could be put to good use if amalgamated so he got our auntie, a seamstress to trade, to shorten the Crombie and trim the broad collar with the fur. The outcome was a belter of a coat that he wore for another ten years while shortie coats were still fashionable. I then wore it for another ten winters until I was about forty. We then handed it in to a refuge for homeless men in Glasgow.

So I know these items can be put to good use. These fur coats are in such brilliant condition I don't just want them 'recycled'. I'm trying to convince my daughter to wear them but she's uber-conscious about the nutters out there, especially where she lives in the studenty west end of the city.
 
Wear them proudly and with love. The animals won't come back to life either way. (Unless of course they are buried in the Pet Cemetary Stephen King wrote about)

Those scrimping for glamourous clothes at the expense of other essentials were known in 1950s Dublin as "Mrs Furcoat No Knickers.'
 
I am not sure if certain dogmatists would be happy with my describing myself as a vegan but I do consciously avoid consuming meat and dairy for largely "ethical" reasons.

Personally, I am not remotely offended by your possession of an antique. Anybody who would confront you or yours for wearing it would be a sociopath using "veganism" as an outlet for their instability rather than somebody whose veganism is the result of a personal introspective process. Were it not for veganism then these people would find some other egocentric reason to confront a stranger. These people should be called out for the menaces that they are, and should not be given any more credence than any other antisocial zealot from any other philosophical bent. Most vegans I know are generally polite and rational human beings who would not even notice somebody wearing real fur as it is indistinguishable from its synthetic forms. Indeed, we have all probably met plenty of sleeper vegans whose diets are unbeknown due to the aforementioned sociopaths.

If the coat has a real sentimental value to you then treasure it for what it is rather than worrying about the misplaced opinions of irrational strangers. If the coat can be put to practical use then that still works out better from an ethical perspective than then environmental and human cost of acquiring and processing the materials needed for an equally functional winter garment.
 
Top post BH

The wearing of vintage fur garments is akin to owning ivory objets d'art carved prior to the CITES Convention banning - entirely correctly - the ownership and sale of such items carved since 1947; and since the passing of the UK Ivory Act in 2018 a very restricted list of ivory items of any age that can be sold

I have a couple of japanese ivory netsukes and an 1ft-high ebony african elephant with majestic 'real' tusks; all three 19th century, and inherited from grandparents. Lovely they are and I wouldn't dream of destroying them, and they will be handed down to the succeeding generations of drones in due course, who can do whatever they want with them, though, happily, due to the aforementioned Ivory Act I think they'll be unable to line their pockets by selling them - ha ha
 
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These replies are much appreciated. They reinforce my own view that the coats are more to be treasured than trashed.
 
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