In a history-making move, the Norwegian fashion community has banned together to ban fur from Oslo Fashion Week, making it the first week of runway presentations in the world to do so.
Ecouterre reports the campaign to forbid animal pelts was spearheaded by a group called Mote Mot Pels (or Fashion Against Fur, for those of you who don’t speak Norwegian), and rapidly gained support from designers and fashion magazines alike. Both Norwegian ELLE and Cosmopolitan Norway have thrown their support behind the movement.
While we here at Styleite have mixed feelings about fur, there’s really no denying that mink and fox (and chinchilla and rabbit, et cetera) continue to make news and drive sales — to say nothing of their ability to incite rage in some and serious fashion lust in others. We also feel we should point out that no one in Norway seems to be up in arms about leather coats or shoes made from snakeskin or alligator. But we digress.
Whether or not the ban will get other countries thinking about banning fur remains to be seen. Norway’s southern neighbor Denmark still has plans to show fur at Copenhagen Fashion Week:
“We believe that fur is a central part of fashion and we have no plans to ban fur from Copenhagen Fashion Week,” says Eva Kruse, the event’s CEO, who believes that fur, like skin and leather, is a natural part of fashion.
“If fur farms are shut down in Norway, the production would just move to other countries like China,” she adds. “Then we will lose all control of how animals are treated.”
And at the end of the day, the treatment of animals is the central issue here. Does a humane fur coat exist?