Wednesday 3 December 2014

#MakeFurHistory

This one tickles me rather a lot.

It's a sad truth that, as the cold weather presses in, we are drawn towards warmer clothes. The warmest and most weather-resistant of them all are fur coats. Nature has provided animals with pelts that are warm, nearly waterproof and good-looking. So, of course, we have to have them.

The cruelty of the fur trade is one of the best known dirty secrets in the fashion world, and yet somehow we still find excuses to justify the death and skinning of minks, rabbits and foxes. In the last few years, shockingly, fur has even been enjoying a little bit of a comeback, popping up on catwalks to, pleasingly, howls of protest.

Kudos and applause to ethical cosmetics manufacturer Lush then, who have been merrily pranking the dim, cruel fashionistas who are not just looking for fur, but bargains. Lush set up a site purporting to sell fur coats at a substantial discount. The site was actually a front. When clicking on the basket, the unsuspecting victim was taken to another site, makefurhistory.com, which had a bit more to say and show about the origins of the stuff. Needless to say, it's merciless in showing how innocent animals are tortured and killed in the cause of vanity.

The problem is that fur sneaks into more products than you might like to think, including makeup brushes and false eyelashes (hence, I suppose, Lush's involvement). The explicit point made by the website is one that many of us would think obvious: fashion fur is unnecessary and needlessly cruel, with the material in some cases taken from living creatures. In a so-called civilised time, it's a bit mind-boggling to think that there's still a market for the stuff. Let's hope that the potential buyers of fur coats and cuffs are at least a little put off when they are confronted with the truth about what they're wearing.
http://makefurhistory.com/

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