It’s been nearly a decade since Gucci declared fur passé, signalling a vibe shift that saw a trickle of brands moving to ban the material turn into a torrent.
And yet this season, the fur “look” was everywhere.
In New York, models at Anna Sui wore clashing furry collars, cuffs, hats and coats. Across the pond, Simone Rocha adorned her looks with fuzzy bras, stoles, dress hems and bag charms, while Burberry wrapped models in oversized fur-look coats and scarves. In Milan, Fendi celebrated its 100th anniversary with a nod to the house’s fur heritage via fluffy kitten heels, shoulder bags and shaggy coats. In Milan, the fur look could also be found at Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Bally, Tods, and yes, even Gucci. Even the more accessibly-priced Ganni finished wool and denim outerwear with pastel tinted furry trims in Paris.
For the most part, the fluffy fashions on this season’s runways were not really made of fur. But a look that had become more-or-less taboo, now seems back in a big way.
“For the longest time, fur was completely shunned by the industry. Even using faux fur was a risk because you wouldn’t want people to think that it’s real, God forbid,” said Mandy Lee, a trend analyst and content creator behind the social-media account Old Loser in Brooklyn. “I haven’t run the numbers, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we were looking at more than 50 percent of all collections including some kind of fur this season.”
Faking It
It can be hard to pinpoint the origin of a trend, especially in the modern era of social media. Long before fur returned to the catwalk, it was filling feeds and fuelling micro-trends like the “mob wife” look. A more conservative political climate that rejects the idea of “woke” consumption policed by climate and social-justice warriors is also playing a role, encouraging consumers to embrace the material once more. For luxury brands, fur’s revival partly reflects the fact that faux alternatives are getting more realistic.
The luxury industry historically positioned fur products as among their most exclusive and most expensive. But for a long time using fake fur meant turning to ratty plastic options made from polyester or acrylic.
Such materials couldn’t provide brands with the aura of elevation real fur once had and did little to support their framing that fur bans were driven by ethical and environmental concerns (more cynical observers pointed out that fur was never a large sales driver for most brands, but ditching it was an easy PR win).
That’s changed over the last few years, with synthetic furs becoming a lot more convincing and natural-fibre-based alternatives made from shearling and wool becoming more available.
Shearling, in particular, appeared as a popular fur alternative this season, with Ferragamo, Giorgio Armani, Burberry, Prada, and Dolce & Gabbana all using sheepskin treated to look like mink, fox, or sable.
Even LVMH-owned Fendi, whose luxury heritage is intimately linked to its origins as a furrier, experimented with the material alongside real fur, including mink. “I’ve been working mostly with shearling, and applying all of the traditional techniques that normally are applied to very luxurious fur, but this time on shearling,” Silvia Venturini Fendi told reporters backstage during Milan Fashion Week.
Shearling isn’t typically included in corporate fur bans, though some animal rights advocates say it should be, sometimes dubbing it “lamb fur.” The material is made by tanning and preserving the skin of a newly shorn lamb or sheep with the wool still attached. Others say the more apt comparison is to leather because, unlike animals such as mink, sheep are not reared solely for their fur.
It’s difficult to track the shearling market and, by extension, its impact on animals, said PJ Smith, director of fashion policy at Humane World for Animals (formerly the Humane Society). “We haven’t been able to say whether shearling numbers have gone up or down because it’s so tied into the meat trade and the wool trade.”
Less popular, but still noteworthy, is wool faux fur, which uses sheep’s hair, but not its skin. For its SS24 collection, Maison Alaïa used wool to create a furry effect by jersey knitting wool fibres into loops then cutting and brushing them to mimic shearling. In its FW24 collection shown in Milan, Max Mara also used wool faux fur to create fuzzy teddy coats. Woolmark, the Australian authority on Merino wool, says that it has received thousands of requests for Merino wool faux fur swatches from its Wool Lab innovation division, with interest growing tenfold since the AW23/24 season.
If not shearling or wool, it isn’t always clear what materials fashion’s largest brands are using in place of real fur. Gucci declined to comment. Simone Rocha confirmed that it used acrylic, made up of deadstock and new faux furs from an Italian mill. Ganni uses recycled polyester in its faux fur coats. Swedish brand Hodakova upcycled vintage fur hats into coats, while Gabriela Heart repurposed real mink coats for her FW25 collection.
Beyond Fur
New, plant-based faux fur alternatives are also emerging that could give brands options that are neither plastic nor animal-based, making them better aligned with the sustainability commitments that supposedly underpinned fur bans in the first place.
Last year, Ganni released a handbag made from Savian, a next-gen fur alternative made from flax, nettle and hemp fibres developed by French-American startup Biofluff.
The company launched in 2022 and released its first first product, a coat made from Savian in partnership with Stella McCartney, at the UN’s COP28 climate summit a year later. “We saw that there was a lot of work being done on the alternative leather space, but nobody was working on the issue of animal fur, plastic faux fur or shearling,” said co-founder Roni Gamzon.
LVMH, whose biggest brands Dior, Louis Vuitton and Fendi, are all still committed to fur, has emerged as a somewhat unlikely investor in the space.
Biofluff was a finalist for the LVMH Innovation Award in 2022 and is part of the group’s La Maison des Startups, which gives 30 startups the opportunity to work with LVMH brands on bringing their solutions to commercial realisation. LVMH and Fendi have been working with Central Saint Martins and Imperial College London to successfully develop proof of concept for a lab-grown fur alternative. Researchers are now working with an unnamed biotech startup to scale the technology, LVMH said.
With many brands turning to alternatives, the aesthetic revival seems unlikely to meaningfully bolster the struggling fur trade.
The industry is in the midst of an historic slump. Decades of campaigning by animal rights groups have successfully crystallised into fur bans at brands, retailers and even by some states and countries. Geopolitics has not been kind either. The pandemic dealt the sector a hefty blow, with Covid-19 outbreaks at mink farms effectively wiping out production in Denmark, once one of the world’s largest producers of pelts. Russia’s war with Ukraine has also destabilised a major trading hub and economic malaise in China has weighed on sales in a major market.
So far, fur’s renewed popularity hasn’t done much to change that picture. Many consumers are turning to old and secondhand fur, rather than buying new, if they want to tap into the trend.
“It’s not as if Prada or Gucci are about to make a grand statement saying they’ve reconsidered and they’re going back to fur,” acknowledged Mark Oaten, chief executive of the International Fur Federation. “But it does seem that there is this younger generation who don’t like to be told what they can and cannot wear.”
Smith, for one, isn’t concerned by the reappearance of fur in the trend cycle. “The Mob Wife trend was just a two-week blip,” he said. “These blips keep on coming, but we’re not seeing any sort of increase in the number of animals being killed, and that’s my biggest concern.”
Disclosure: LVMH is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholders’ documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence.
