AL HAYAT - 'Stigmatized' or 'sustainable'? Vintage sales boost sees fur return

Jacobs fished out the long mink her grandmother left her years ago and took it to a Manhattan furrier to give it a second act.

Fur "was stigmatized for so long," Jacobs told AFP, posing before a full-length mirror and assessing a potential crop.

But the return of real fur "fits with everything that's going on with recycling and bringing back vintage," she said.

"I never would have bought a fur coat," Jacobs said, adding that the thought of "killing animals like that" gave her pause.

But "this felt like I was recycling it," she said.

New York is thawing out after a particularly cruel winter that's included debates over fur's revival as influencers push the look and retail sites report a jump in searches for vintage pieces.

Business owners like Larry Cowit -- who inherited and runs his family's Madison Avenue Furs -- are celebrating a sales spike.

"I have girls as young as 20 years old walking in, coming in from college, and putting on a fox jacket," Cowit told AFP. "We haven't seen that in quite a while."

Noelle Sciacca -- head of fashion at the high-end resale site The RealReal -- said "interest in fur has accelerated dramatically," with searches for vintage fur on their website nearly tripling in 2025 from 2024.

The trend is "booming across the board," she told AFP, "but real fur is clearly leading the surge."

Sciacca owes part of the interest to "sustainable, accessible resale options," which she said "has made consumers feel comfortable embracing fur as both stylish and thoughtful."

- Muddled public opinion -

The global fashion industry's use of fur has been on the outs for decades.

Synthetic, cheaper alternatives have gained traction, and animal rights activists continue to push dropping the real thing.

Demonstrators recently urged Milan Fashion Week to go fully fur-free. New York's Fashion Week fur ban goes into effect in September 2026.

Many major designers have vowed to stop using it, including Prada, Michael Kors and Saint Laurent.

The European Commission meanwhile is reviewing a citizen's initiative that drew millions of signatures urging an EU-wide ban on fur farming. A spokesperson told AFP the commission would communicate in the coming weeks whether it would propose such a prohibition.

Yet the culture's court of public opinion has grown muddled, notably as concerns about fast fashion and petroleum-based materials grow.

"I always imagine all of the faux-fur coats being produced right now melting into a puddle of plastic. The idea of reuse and recycling can include vintage fur," Vogue archivist Laird Borrelli-Persson said in comments recently published by the fashion magazine.

"The question for me is whether wearing vintage fur increases the appetite for lookalikes -- either faux or new fur."

Real fur coats demand consistent upkeep. The skins contain natural oils, and garments not kept in a temperature-controlled environment -- ideally off-season in cold vaults -- can dry out and disintegrate.

"It's biodegradable," said Cowit.

But Ashley Byrne of animal rights group PETA said buying vintage under the banner of sustainability is "well-meaning but misguided."

She told AFP that shoppers who didn't grow up exposed to footage from inside fur farms should "understand that wearing any fur that came from the back of an animal who was tortured and killed is endorsing things that we're sure they do not want to support."

- Online influence -

Cowit said their ratio of vintage to new fur sales is now approximately 70 to 30. Pre-owned coats can go anywhere from $500 to $10,000, and the average mink is $1,500 to $1,800, he said.

He credits the internet with boosting business: "The influencers on social media have really changed the whole world."

Part of the online drive stems from the "mob wife" aesthetic that's trended on TikTok in recent years, looks featuring flashy jewelry, animal prints, and -- you guessed it -- fur.

Madison Avenue Furs' Instagram features Cowit's niece posing on the shop's balcony in a variety of plush coats recalling "Sopranos"-esque fashion.

Stylist Renee May, who stopped by with shoppers looking to modernize their grandmother's coats and check out new jackets, told AFP "a lot of my clients are wearing their furs again."

Nicole Bellmier, 36, called the look "very nostalgic."

"It's something to pass down to our children," her cousin Dominique Defonte added.

P.Najdi--al-Hayat