Fur

[KATE]

Fur bearing animals, are their cuddly coats up for grabs or meant to stay on the animals back?

To help you decide...
www.criticalbeauty.com/Pageants_Fur_Coats_1.html

SO are you of the mind to pull on a mink coat, or are you grabbing nylon jackets?

Do you own a fur garment?

[Aanaleigh]

Animal furs weren't made for humans to take and use for fashion purposes. They weren't meant for humans to take at all.

I've never owned a fur garment in my life, and I plan to never start.

[Rowena]

Yeah, I don't own anything fur - although my mom does own a fur coat - and I don't plan to start, ever. I'm against it because I think it's a wasteful use of an animal life - killing them just so we can take their coat. Also it really grosses me out, just like the idea of eating meat grosses me out now - like, I don't think I could stand wearing anything made of fur. Even fake fur makes me uncomfortable.

While I thought this article was very interesting, and I like that the author called out the fashion industry for encouraging fur to be seen as fashionable, I'm not quite sure that the pageant world is such a far cry from the fashion industry. "Canidates are supposed to manifest substance, sensitivity and discernment" in beauty pageants? Really? I'll admit I've never watched a beauty pageant - and never plan to - so my familiartiy with the subject is limited to Miss Congeniality and Beauty Queens, but I think the author needs to double-check their definition

[KATE]

This is where I get come in a play miss bad person.
I own a beaver fur hat, and I own other fur pieces as well. While I don't agree completely with this article my fashion sense has always focused more on function rather than fashion. To me, fur is warm. I like it, in fact I love my beaver hat so much that somedays I would like to pet it all day long because its so soft and my ear never get cold, even if its raining, hailing, or sleeting outside.
Also the idea of fur can be pushed to the wrong side of things, of course all of you probably are thinking of those poor little foxes that are used as shawls and what not but what about a sheep, I'm sure many of you have worn wool at least once. My best winter coat is wool. What about leather? My boot laces are made of leather and they last ALOT longer than that nylon nonsense.

There is a point when we have to say okay, fur isn't needed for that. But the function of fur is always going to be around. Its how humans have survived this long. WIthout using the fur of other animals humans would haved died out long ago in one of our cold snaps. We are the only animals that don't have a useful byproduct, but thats because its very taboo to us. In fact the 19th century and prior, some medical books were made out of human skin, instead of other leathers like cow or pig or even goat, the bindings were done in leather made from human skin.

So to an extent, I am pro fur cothing, with reason, not just as a fashion statment

[Rowena]

Kate, to get wool, you don't have to kill the sheep. You just shear it.

I recognize that, in the past, people used fur because it was warm and because if they were going to kill an animal they needed to use all the different parts of it. I respect that and it makes sense. And while we still use all the parts of the animals we kill today (my Bio teacher gave us a handout on this), when you're making fur garments out of animals like chinchillas or minx (sp?) the animals are probably being raised soley for the purpose of being killed to make a coat. That's what I'm against.

[KATE]

Yes I know about the sheep, but it is essentially the same idea without considering that it does kill a sheep right away. Although I have done some research on the life span of a sheep that has been sheared and unsheared. From what I find, shearing sheep creates 'shear stress' on the cells of their skin creating difficult problems for the sheep. This includes cells not being able to repair quick enough, young cells not developing properly, this also makes sheep fall into more deadly diseases, etc. So no it does not kill sheep DIRECTLY. But quick death vs long slow disease?

Yes we do farm animals for furs, but don't we plant forests for paper? Also if we had considered staying with the old age techniques of using animal furs, cotton, wool, etc for clothing our world would be suffering less if we didn't use so much synthetic material or mass produced some of our things.

[Rowena]

Still, you are able to shear a sheep more than once in it's life, which means that - even if it does die eventually - it is less of a waste of life because you can get more than one "harvest" if you will out of it.

While we do plant forests for paper, there is a big difference between a tree and an animal. Trees don't have feelings. While they are being raised just to be killed, that method is actually better than cutting down existing trees that are much older.

There are non-fur options that are much more sustainable than synthetic materials, such as fabrics made from bamboo. If people actually became interested in using less synthetic material, bamboo fabrics and those like it would be a much better option.