ignitioned32
Mannikin
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- May 20, 2003
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Guess what's a hot new item?
PARIS After a relationship that has been as on and off as J.Lo's with Ben Affleck, fur and fashion are definitely an item - and in more senses than one. The stylish are falling in love with fur as a single piece: a puff of dangling mink bag, a fringe of goat bearding a wrist, a furry shrug enveloping the shoulders.
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It is the fashion age of the item - the one must-have piece that pulls a casual wardrobe together. And the current season is filled with ideas that transmit the texture and warmth of fur, without any sense of status or showing off.
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"There is something almost confrontational about a big fur; the only palatable thing in the real word is to use fur as an accent," says Rick Owens, the American designer who arrived in Paris from Los Angeles and shook up the illustrious but staid house of Revillon, which dates from 1723.
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Owens says his mission was to set fur free, allowing it to ripple to the body rather than to cage it in the boxy shape of a conventional wool coat. And he also liked the idea of mixing furs. That resulted in exotic combinations of a mink jacket with fox sleeves and goat fringing.
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"It was also important to me to mix the low with the high, such as horse hair with sable," he says. "I tried not to make pieces for status but to express the tactile beauty of fur. It was not about display, but about isolating the idea of texture. I haven't had to work fur for 20 years and I'm coming at it from almost a naïve point of view with a fresh perspective."
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Significantly, one of the technical revolutions of recent years came from another fur innocent. A Japanese student in a seminar with Saga Furs of Scandinavia thought laterally about fur and envisaged the flat pattern of a final garment with furs of different lengths and textures. The result was Saga's "fish scale" technique, giving a sophisticated raggedness that was taken up by Versace and by Karl Lagerfeld as mink with silver fox. It became yet another example of how fur could be literally and metaphorically lightened up by technical skill.
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Lagerfeld has been laying down challenges for three decades for the house of Fendi, whose furs are consistently mold-breaking. The designer's demands have included fur treated to look like plastic and light-as-a-feather fur knits, even funky fur boots.
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Like the rest of the luxury industry, fur has been democratized, offered as an accessory that can sell at the same price as leather. Speaking for the International Fur Trade Federation, Tanya Baird says that product development in accessories and items has widened fur's reach and that technical innovations have made "a huge difference" in what designers can achieve. The result was a 10.8 percent increase to nearly $11 billion in worldwide fur sales last year.
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"As fur becomes more versatile, people are using it for more everyday things," Baird says. "It is much less about an evening coat that you would just wear to the opera."
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What's new this winter? Knitted fur offers sweaters, boleros and vests that cry out to be worn with jeans and cords - yet can equally be smartened up for that night at the opera. It is all summed up by John Galliano's bag with a fur shoulder strap. You might not wear it, as shown on the runway, with a bikini, but it would lift any casual outfit into the luxury category. The sad and sudden loss last week of Simona Fendi, 38, of a lung embolism, is a reminder of how much the house was built on family talent and skill. Simona became an expert after working with her mother, Paola, and her cousin, Silvia Venturini Fendi, on developing fur techniques before the house came under the control of LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton).
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International Herald Tribune
Opinions?
B)
. I remember seeing footage of fur farms on fashion television and that was enough. I'm not a crazed peta freak but it really does bug me seeing fur everywhere. Today I was shopping at forever 21, and they had a rabbit fur vest. I was in shock. I felt it and thought,"damn that feels pretty real" and it was. That's the last place I ever thought i would find fur. oh well.
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