On the lighter side...

Farmed animals: just as adorable as any puppy or kitten!

Tackling Tacky Murder Fashion

            We all know that Fur Is Murder. It’s a mantra that’s been in use since the dawn of the Animal Rights Movement in the early 1970s. Prior to the Animal Rights Movement, it wasn’t uncommon to see movie stars of film’s Golden Era decked out head-to-toe in furs. Fur was a status symbol amongst the rich; housewives across the country yearned for a taste of that matinee idol-glamour. A single piece of fur clothing was a real bragging right. I remember that my grandmother’s most prized possession was her mink stole, complete with the animal’s head still intact, which she wore for years and years. Even Hollywood legend and vocal animal rights activist Doris Day wore fur before witnessing animal abuse on the set of The Man Who Knew Too Much and being moved to crusade on their behalf. Fur was a way of life. No one ever really considered where it came from, and what had to be done in order to get it to the stores and into their closets.

            Nowadays, it is far less common to see a coat or stole made from real fur. With the Animal Rights Movement came awareness of the cruelty and wastefulness of the fur industry. Thanks to the actions of extremist animal rights group PETA, it would not be farfetched for a woman decked out in a full-length fur coat to fear being splashed with a bucketful of red paint and labeled a murderer. The 1980s and 1990s saw a considerable decrease in the sale of fur; unfortunately, however, sales have surged in the new millennium thanks to a rise in disposable income in Russia and China. And as I found out in the process of writing this article, if you Google “fur sales in the US,” you will find a sickening amount of fur retailers looking to unload all kinds of garments made from fox, mink, and chinchilla. The fact remains, though, that since the 1970s the wearing of genuine fur carries with it an entire set of social stigmas.

            Why is it, then, that leather is a different story? We all know that leather is made from cow hide, and as such the cow must die. When I ate meat, I felt that it was a travesty to wear fur, but I wore leather. Many people share this mindset: fur is murder, but leather isn’t much of a problem. The most obvious explanation is that in our culture, it is acceptable to kill cows for food, and so it is just as acceptable to wear their skin. Americans don’t eat mink or fox or chinchilla. In fact, chinchillas are commonly kept as household pets. If you kept a chinchilla in your home as a treasured friend, would you feel ok with wearing a coat made of his brothers and sisters? (As a side note, it can take anywhere from 150 to 300 chinchillas to make a coat. Chinchillas are sweet, highly personable animals; the idea of 300 of them being slaughtered to keep us warm when there are so many other options is sickening, to say the least.) It all goes back to the point that I made in my first post: there is no difference between a cow and an animal kept as a household pet, but in our culture it is acceptable to eat one but not the other. Another explanation as to why we feel more of an aversion to fur is that the process is incredibly wasteful. We only use the outside of the animal and discard the rest, whereas the entirety of the cow is used. Animals slaughtered for fur (legally, that is) are fairly small, so it requires many more to make up a coat, whereas cows are so large that a single animal provides much more material. The disparity between what we can and can’t eat/wear is well represented in this exchange from the TV show Arrested Development, when Lindsay voices her disapproval of leather despite being a meat-eater:

            Lindsay: “I’m not against using the inside of the animal. People need meat to survive."

            Michael: “You are aware that they don’t remove the meat from the cow surgically, right?”

This isn’t to say that I feel that the killing of cows is excusable in any way. When I realized that it was wrong to kill animals for food, that realization spread to all aspects of animal exploitation. I will never again buy an item made from a dead animal. However, I was faced with a considerable dilemma. I have two pairs of Doc Martens that I have absolutely lived in, day in and day out, for a few years now. One pair was a Christmas gift; the other I had purchased with tax return money. Ever since I was a young teenager, I had desperately wanted a pair of Doc Martens: they represented everything that was punk, everything that was rebellious. I never owned a pair because they were expensive, so when I finally received them as a twenty-something, they quickly became my favorite shoes, ever, in the history of anything.

            They are made of leather.       

            In the moment that I swore never to touch meat again, I remember looking down at my feet and bursting into tears. I was wearing murder. What should I do? Should I throw them away? Simply stop wearing them? Should I continue to wear them, and be a hypocrite? It was an issue I struggled with, and still struggle with, as there is no clear answer. I felt that if I threw them away, it would somehow be disrespectful to the animal who had given his life so that these boots could be made, and I was throwing him, and his memory, away. If I sequestered them to a corner of my closet and tried to forget about them, it wouldn’t be undoing the injustice that was done to this animal. The damage had been done. The cow was dead; there was no fixing that, no matter what I did. With great discomfort and sadness, I decided to keep wearing them. My reasoning was this: if I never buy a product made of leather again, I will be doing my part not to support tacky murder fashion, but by wearing the items I do own until they fall apart, I am trying to honor that animal’s sacrifice. It’s the same reason I would not throw paint on a fur coat; the animal gave his life, and destroying the evidence will not fix that.  I can’t really defend my decision much further, and if others in the vegan community judge me for it, I can’t say I blame them. I literally have nightmares about the issue. If I could give that cow back, and return his skin to him, I would do so in a heartbeat.

            The positive aspect to the whole issue of murder fashion is that our society is evolving. The popularity of “pleather”—a leather-type material made from plastic—is evidence of that. Pleather first became available in the 1970s, and the word was generally used in a derogatory way, insinuating that the wearer was too cheap or poor to wear the real thing. However, by the 1990s, pleather was being worn by pop stars and fashion models. Today, faux leather is more popular than ever, and highly durable and fashionable strains are being seen everywhere. Often labeled “vegan leather,” it is available in all colors and styles, and for all budgets. Vegetan is a microfiber material that was designed specifically as a cruelty-free leather substitute; Lorica, Birko-Flor, Birkibuc and Kydek are all types of patented artificial leather. I can attest to the durability and fabulousness of vegan leather myself: my favorite jacket is made of vegan leather, and I found it at Kohl’s! The idea that someone like myself, with very limited funds, can find something progressive like vegan leather at a department store giant like Kohl’s is representative that animal-friendly fashion is on the rise, and perhaps may be the norm sometime soon.

            We live in a first-world country. As Americans, we can survive perfectly well without having to consume flesh, and we can face the elements of nature without having to rely upon the skins and furs of animals. It’s my own burden to carry that I own a product made from the skin of an animal, but I hope to show that animal some respect by getting use out of the item he died to give me, and by never buying leather ever again. As for fur, I’m glad I never had to cross that moral bridge, and I’m glad that it has become increasingly common for others to avoid as well.

            We’re getting there. Perhaps someday we will reach the point where no animal is killed for skin or food… unfortunately, it could be just as likely that we will destroy ourselves before we ever get to that point. But I can hope, can’t I?