Fur

I'm sure everyone (yes, even you vegetarians!) has looked on in envy at a glamorous woman, or indeed some sort of pimp daddy wrapped in a heap of softy softy fur and thought of the things they would do just to get their hands on a coat like that. We've all been there! Trawling through the depths of eBay has brought to my interest that real fur items are appearing to go for next to nothing. The only reason I've never gone for the real deal is because of the price tag, not particularly thinking of the more cruel aspects of it. However, now that I'm seeing genuine mink pelt is within my fiscal grasp, I am having to consider the moral implications of buying real fur.

I am a devout meat eater and always have been. I would not give up meat to save an animals life (although I have switched temporarily to Quorn until the days I can afford free-range chicken breasts. I'd rather not feast on meat that when alive rotted in its own faeces). However, animals should be treated right. A guarantee with your fur garment is that the animal will definitely have had a good life, otherwise the fur would be manky. The only problem with this is the horrendous ways in which these animals are killed. In some fur farms, namely in China where animal protection laws are minimal, a regular method is skinning the animal alive - watch this video if you dare.

So how to tackle this problem for the many fur clad garments I covet? One solution would be just not to wear fur - yes ok, but I would be a hypocrite unless I turned veggie and also beside the point of this post. I did a bit of research and it seems any fur from North America is ok, probably Europe too but I'm not sure. Always try and buy vintage, as even if these weren't humanely produced, it is better to recycle old fur than create more demand for it.

Anyway, so very sorry to go so morbid but I thought I would bring this up because I don't think that fur-wearers should be condemned any more than meat-eaters. If anything, fur-animals have far better lives than food-animals. So when my mother said to me 'yeah but fur, cruelty to animals isn't it?', I replied with "Which would you prefer? A great life and a horrible death, or a crap life but a quick and easy death?"

And with that, I shall be bidding on this lovely lovely fur collar that I intend to sew onto my woolen coat. God I love animals today.