Do you have a fake fur jacket? Perhaps a glimmer of fur around your Uggs or the hood of your coat? Then, in all likelihood, you may be wearing real animal fur.

An investigation by the Humane Society has revealed that the “faux fur” jackets by designer Marc Jacobs sold at Century 21 department stores actually contained dog fur.  This is just an example of a mainstream retail company using dog fur from China to line its clothing under the pretext that it is fake fur.  There was a storm at the time and it was withdrawn but do you know if what you are wearing is really ‘faux fur’ or not?  The problem is that they often blend real fur with fake fur to line a hood, jacket or boots so legally that can say it’s fake fur but, in reality, it’s not.

The Fur you most readily see when you’re walking about the high street is that of the Raccoon dog; a wild member of the canine family that resembles a raccoon but is not related. It’s common in parts of China, Japan, and Siberia. They’re valued for their fur and, allegedly, skinned alive – for their soft coat, which can be cheaper than fake fur. As I pointed out in my last article on fur, China has forced prices of fur down so that it’s cheaper for manufacturers to use dog fur then fake fur!

According to the BBC, 70,000 raccoon dogs are killed every year for the fashion/clothing  industry, and for medical use. In China, according to Fur Free Alliance, 1.5 million raccoon dogs are bred on fur farms where they’re held in cruel conditions and killed for their hair by electrolysis or skinned alive.

So the question remains, is what you are wearing fake at all? The subsequent question has to be, why don’t people care about what they are wearing?  In the first article in this series I outlined the social ‘normalising’ of fur by celebrities, and how that’s filtered down, so we see adverts just like those in the 50s, linking fur with wealth and status, and fur advocates are winning the fight on all fronts and there is always someone willing to show it is cheaper to torture animals for their fur than manufacture completely fake fur – making fake fur uneconomical as the high street brand names seek to protect their profits.  As long as people find a fur trim alluring, then  dogs and cat will be killed in China to make them. The only way to stop the mass killing of so many animals is to stop buying fur, in any regard including fake – now that is taking a stand – or at least insist that the high street retailers have proof on their products that the fur is 100% fake and anything with any tiny amount of animal fur on has to be classed as real animal fur.

I hope you have read the series on the fur trade we have published so far. The earlier articles are posted on the magazine page of the website robertsink.com. Thanks to everyone who has followed this series.  The responses have been huge in number and very supportive, with so many sharing the articles to raise awareness that we, the customer, can stop the barbaric world of the fur trade. So what do you think? Is there a different way?

If you enjoyed this then do sign up for regular alerts on our articles, and do please purchase the fiction novel available, Kingdom of Men, or an item from our ethically sound clothing as this supports our resident author and creative team so he and they can carry on working and writing articles about tough issues.  All available on the shop window page of the site www.www.robertsink.com