The Furor over Wearing Furs

By J.D. Reed

When Anna La Barbera, a 33-year-old psychotherapist from White Plains, N.Y., bought a silver fox coat in 1984, she did so with joy and absolutely no hesitation. She would like to replace the aging fur, however, and she is in a quandary. "There's nothing like the warmth of fur," she says. But her physician husband is concerned about animal rights, and the arguments of anti- fur activists have moved her. "I've been struggling with the dilemma of buying fur," says La Barbera. "I like the look, but I feel real guilty." She is now shopping for good-quality wool coats as well as for furs.

La Barbera's dilemma is increasingly common among American women. Until recently, owning a fur coat, usually a mink, was an unquestioned emblem of luxury and social status. But lately a growing cadre of animal-rights activists has been aggressively denouncing such garments as "sadist symbols" that, they say, require the deaths of some 70 million helpless creatures each year (about 50 minks for each coat). That emotional claim has touched off a bitter battle that pits the animal lobby against fur owners and an increasingly embattled fur industry. So nasty have the hostilities become that in some cities around the country women wearing furs are being publicly jeered or otherwise harassed.

Animal-rights groups have steadily gathered force. Last month Trans-Species Unlimited, an animal activist organization, staged its fourth annual Fur-Free Friday in 90 cities across the nation. In New York City some 3,000 protesters, led by perennial TV game-show host Bob Barker, marched down Fifth Avenue carrying signs and taunting fur-coat wearers with shouts of "Shame!" Says Barker, who resigned last year as host of the Miss Universe pageant because contestants wore fur: "We want people wearing fur to be embarrassed when they walk into a restaurant. Fur is obscene, fur is cruel, and fur is archaic." Two weeks ago, the city council in Aspen, Colo., voted to put on the ballot an initiative that would ban the sale of fur in the trendy resort town. Says Aspen Mayor Bill Stirling: "As a community, we don't want to earn our sales- tax dollars from cruelty to animals."

The furor has also hit the media. A recent segment of the popular TV series L.A. Law involved a furrier who sued an animal-rights group for ruining his business. The show aired gruesome video clips of animals caught in brutal leg traps. On an upcoming episode of Designing Women, narcissistic Suzanne Sugarbaker is mauled by anti-fur activists. When Atlanta disk jockey Scott Woodside this month mentioned that he had bought his wife a mink coat, listeners deluged his station with calls. The result was an informal poll in which the anti-fur forces carried the day, 702 to 684. Said Woodside: "I was extremely surprised."

While most anti-fur groups work by moral persuasion, a few animal activists have adopted extreme, even criminal tactics to advance their cause. In New York City they have sprayed coats with paint. On Fur-Free Friday several fur shops were vandalized in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. In Europe anti-fur commandos have even attacked fur wearers to gain attention. Their campaigns have succeeded in depressing fur sales in Britain, Holland and West Germany. Diana, Princess of Wales, has publicly stated that she will no longer wear furs.

The fur industry maintains that mink, which account for 75% of U.S. fur coats, are treated humanely and killed painlessly. Fur, the industry points out, is a natural fabric whose production does not pollute the environment or use fossil fuels, as does the creation of acrylic fibers. Nonetheless, U.S. fur sales have remained stagnant -- at an annual level of about $1.8 billion -- over the past three years; during the Christmas season, many department stores are slashing prices to move their furs. To meet the animal-rights threat, the Fur Information Council of America last month launched an ad campaign stressing freedom of choice: "Today fur. Tomorrow leather. Then wool. Then meat." Bernard Groger, co-publisher of the trade magazine Fur World, says, "Nobody can tell the American woman what to wear." Warns Seattle furrier Nicholas Benson: "You're seeing signs of terrorism. People are afraid to wear furs on the streets because of what might happen."

Many women -- and fur-wearing men too -- are starting to think twice before they shrug on a fur and nip off to the office or the grocery store. Ever since she was called "animal killer" on the street, Susan Singer, a Manhattan executive, has been ambivalent about wearing her fur coat. So is New York department-store employee Suzanne Pandjiris, who still wears her mink but fears attacks by protesters. "It makes me nervous," she says.

Moved by ethical concerns, a number of former fur lovers have defected to the other side. Davida Terry, a Lincolnshire, Ill., advertising executive, has kept her eight fur coats hidden in a closet ever since a chiding by an animal- rights supporter caused her to have a change of heart. "How could anyone wear a fur coat?" she now says. "How these animals have to suffer!" Last week, as a gesture of support, Chicago secretary Kathi Hodowal turned over her eight-year-old mink coat to Trans-Species, which uses such donations to stage mock funerals with fur-filled coffins. Explains Hodowal: "I just decided to give up my fur coat. It's so cruel to animals."

Other women stubbornly refuse to be intimidated. Chicago art-gallery owner Eva-Maria Worthington, for instance, does not hesitate to wrap herself in beaver against the winds on the Magnificent Mile. "If they're so concerned about animals," she sniffs, "I think they should go to a pound and clean cages and take care of the dogs and cats. Some people have replaced their religion with animal rights." But it's a jungle out there: even women who have switched to fake furs to assuage their conscience do not feel comfortable. Many protectively wear large buttons that proclaim NO FUR or REAL PEOPLE WEAR FAKE FUR.

With reporting by Scott Brown/Los Angeles and Andrea Sachs/New York