In the same way we can't get away from tweed this season, fur is currently flying out of the stores. There isn't a collection on the catwalk or the high street that hasn't acknowledged its existence as a must-have item.
 It's a 'must-have' - but there's a much more important 'must', and it's a 'must-be'. This season's fur must come from a technically ingenious process. It's nearly as clever as spinning fleece from the same plastics that make soft drinks bottles (what? you mean you didn't know!). The only fur to wear this season is a woven double cloth with interlocking warp threads which produce a three dimensional pile with a pre-determined pile height! Have we lost you? It's the same process that's used to make velvet, just imagine that it's a longer pile. This is the fabulous Faux (meaning fake) Fur, which can imitate any creature known to man. French company Tissavel are the fabric industry's 'king' of faux fur producers, with an international business exporting to 45 countries and 80pc of their business going to the fashion industry. Their fauxs are woven between two cotton base cloths with acrylic and modacrylic fibres to numb the flashpoint (technical jargon for saying it won't catch fire during the production process). Even more interesting; the off-shoots of the faux business benefit other businesses - medical pads for bedsores, saddle numnah's for horses, pet bedding, paint rollers, floor mops and gloves for the cleaning industries. And of course there's been a huge rise in faux fur in home furnishings like cushions and bedcovers and furniture throws. "Long pile `furs' have been particularly popular for fashion," says Tissavel who list Mink, Lynx, Chinchilla and Wolf as hot favourites. They certainly create a much more dramatic effect, particularly for evening wear, which in previous decades, and less enlightened times, would have been the desired effect. The anti-fur protesters must be delighted with fashion's current faux fur popularity, as it presents an ethically correct way to admire the beauty of animals without having to resort to harming them. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA for short), has been campaigning long and hard for many years, using high profile PR and ad campaigns aimed primarily at the fashion industry, for the misuse of fur as fashion.
 Lisa Franzetta, campaign co-ordinator for PETA based in the USA, says: "As you know, many top designers adamantly refuse to work with fur because of the tremendous suffering of the millions of animals caught in traps and killed on filthy fur farms every year for the fur trade." "Stella McCartney is a particularly outspoken fur-foe who, along with others like Todd Oldham and USA designers Ben Cho, Gaelyn & Cianfarani and Marc Bouwer, do not use fur or leather in any of their collections. "Many models and celebrities also reject the cruelty of fur," says Lisa. "Beauties including Pamela Anderson, Christina Applegate, Sophie Ellis- Bextor, Pink, Charlotte Ross, Christy Turlington, Carre Otis, Alicia Silverstone and Marcus Schenkenberg not only refuse to wear fur, but have posed in PETA ads, denouncing the practice of breaking animals' necks and anally electrocuting them for the sake of vanity." Academy Award winner Charlize Theron is PETA's newest anti-fur poster girl, posing with her dog in an appeal saying, "If you wouldn't wear your dog, please don't wear ANY fur." (Her new ad can be seen on www.FurIsDead.com). "There have only been a couple of turncoat models," says Lisa. "Cindy Crawford is perhaps the best known." Despite signing a pledge at the height of her career stating that she would never wear fur, she is currently appearing in a fur ad campaign. "Former fans of hers across the country are up in arms about it, doing protests from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York in the past several weeks," says Lisa. Pamela Anderson, always a friend to the animals, is now crossing over from `beauty' to `designer' and is providing animal-friendly alternatives to skins with her new "Pamela Collection", which is being launched in the USA this autumn. Included in her collection will be faux suede pull-on sheepskin boots, for people who love that trendy look without wanting to support the violent skins industry (PETA is currently campaigning against the Australian sheepskin industry's methods of collection). "Fake sheepskin is much in demand for those wanting an animal friendly product," reports Philip Jackson of Halifax based Peter Jackson & Sons Ltd. The process involves knitting already shorn wool (using British wools and European Merino) on a jersey backing with a loop stitch which is interlocked between each stitch. It is then sheared or cropped, and the company, like Tissavel, have a considerable market share of supplying the cloth to cleaning and polishing industries, hospitals and equestrian businesses, as well as fashion and soft furnishings manufacturers. "In addition to designers who work exclusively with faux, most who continue to use real animals skins now recognise the huge market share made up of compassionate shoppers who shun all fur, and many also do cruelty-free faux designs," continues Lisa Franzetta. So the message is getting through. And the word faux is now so recognisable, companies are trading on the word alone. www.faux.uk.com has some particularly nice pieces. How long faux will live and thrive depends on the usual vagaries of fashion; in one minute, out the next, but thankfully only acrylic fibres have been harmed in the process. | 
Fashion
Gardening