Montreal and an old hat
Last week we made a quick trip to Montreal, greeted on Groundhog's Day by a blizzard that dumped over 40cm (17 inches) of snow, socking in the city.
Once of the great pleasures of the two day trip was an evening with son Etienne and his sweetie, Tash, at Liverpool House, for I had a gift for him. While cleaning out the basement as part of the prep for selling this house (staging a basement means it must look like you never kept anything in it), I found, sealed into a canister, a beaver hat.
Archie and Frances LaFreniere |
The trapper-style hat was a gift to my Dad from a grateful patient, Mr. Archie LaFreniere of Beaver Island, Michigan, circa 1962; he trapped the beaver himself.
Beaver Island is one of the wild outposts, an island in Lake Michigan flung into the Straits of Mackinac. When I was growing up, few people lived there and fewer visited, but in the mid-1800s it was briefly home to an "American monarchy" led by James Strang, a Mormon leader.
Nearly fifty years later, supple and intact, it was a perfect fit on Etienne's head, plush and warm.
And so, fur.
It's a fraught subject, with many rejecting all fur, even recycled, while others assert that it is a 'sustainable resource'. I'm in the middle, having grown up and lived in northern communities where the fur trade is a livelihood. One of Mom's best friends owned a mink ranch.
Izzy Camielleri is a talented Toronto designer who specializes in leather and fur. She's recently launched Izma, a collaboration with fashion journalist Adrien Mainella. The complete lookbook is online. Izma uses Origin Assured pelts, which means that the fur comes from a country where regulations concerning welfare and production are in force.
A example of Izma's exhilarating style, a v-neck tunic in long-haired beaver:
A swing coat in natural muskrat:
I wear fur, currently, a 12 year-old sheared mink duffle coat, a 26 year-old raccoon hat and a fox scarf made from recycled goods. I also wear leather and eat meat, with gratitude to the animals.
Last month I bought one of those down coats that make everyone look like a walking sleeping bag. (And in case you think down is gathered from what's left behind in the nest, it is not.)
When wearing fur, I've had only two incidents of negative comments in forty years, one when wearing a sheared beaver swing coat that my mother owned for several decades, then passed to me.
I asked the woman who accosted me on the steps of the library how many resources had been expended on the various coats she had purchased while Mom or I were wearing this coat over thirty-five years. (To be fair, I could only make this point with a long-wearing fur like beaver.)
The second incident happened when I was wearing a fake fur!
Montreal is an historic fur centre, and as expected, I saw more (mostly mink) on its streets than in Toronto and down-stuffed parkas on nearly everyone, infants to elders. There's less angst about animal products when temps dip below -20C.
Etienne in Gramps' hat |
And that 50 year old hat? Warmed my heart and his head.
Comments
My step-mother now has a mink 3/4 sleeve coat that belonged to my grand-mere. I've let her know in no uncertain terms that I'd like to have it when she's done with it. ;-)
I think it is terrific that you could pass the hat down to your son.
Darla
Also, in my opinion, if I eat meat but have issues with leather and fur, I'm being intellectually dishonest. If one is immoral, aren't they all questionable? (I am of course excepting any practices of extreme cruelty here.)
So when I got to the decision tree of 1) vegan, 2) shoot and clean my own meat so I am reminded that it doesn't come from a lab wrapped in plastic or, 3) do the best you can - I chose 3. Eat local meat, take good care of my leather goods, and I may wear shearling/fur when it makes sense (but NOT only to look like a wealthy suburbanite).
I wished I had a fur coat this morning! In extremely cold temperatures nothing is as warm as fur, not even down coats.
But when living in Italy I'd see fur used only as a statement of wealth and status, in an utterly inappropriate climate for it (and people in Alpine regions tend to dress more in sporty garments). The summum of that crap was Michèle Bennet Duvalier turning up the air conditioning in the Port-au-Prince presidential palace so she could strut around in her furs and the ludicrous shoe collection all dictators' wives seem to get off on.
Fur coats are warm, but they can also be very heavy, and our climate is no longer always suited for them (it rained yesterday). I don't really like them on me, but I like those puffy coats even less...
Susan, all the fur trim on a popular parka brand here is sourced from (overabundant) coyotes. Another false environmental issue - in a world where there are so many real and dire environmental questions - was the agitation for a ban on seal products in Europe. The seal species killed for these products is very far from endangered, and killing them is no crueller than killing animals for meat, and they live far more pleasant lives beforehand. (There is no more clubbing of seal cubs).
Hadley Freeman, a style writer at the Guardian, thinks fur is in poor taste on men or women, but she is writing in London where the winter cold is more of the bone-chilling damp variety, not bitter cold, and fur is worse than useless. (One needs cashmere, under something water-resistant). Tonnes of comments!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/06/ask-hadley-fur-coats-byline-photos
Étienne's hat looks very cool. Or rather, warm.
Toby: What a story (and I'm guessing your grandfather had many of his own.) I tried on a sheepskin coat by Christ in Jan., truly featherweight, a real stunner. Still, $3,000 on sale.
Pseu: Hope you get the coat! Many women here have those relined in something like fuchsia satin.
seeyou: I heard a woman in a mink being yelled at; she responded "And I have TWO MORE in my closet!" They are no longer accepting the abuse.
lagatta: Fur is expensive compared to fabric, and *anything* expensive can be used as an ostentatious display of wealth.
But ordinary people have for centuries used fur because there is nothing like it, often buying secondhand. A fur does not have to be heavy, the better construction techniques yield light, warm garments.
When raccoons broke into my basement and caused over $4,000 of damage (while I was away for the weekend) that my insurance would not cover, I thought hard about trapping them myself and eventually wearing them.
I owned two sheepskin coats years ago but found them very heavy (mine were not high quality) so gave them away.
Artful: That's where I am too. But where I live, if one wants to look like a wealthy suburbanite it is about the the biggest SUV you can buy, or a Lamborghini not necessarily fur.
There are a lot of secondhand furs for sale in the funky vintage stores, kids buy them and wear them over denim jackets.
I saw a reedy little teen in a mini made from a mink stole, worn over thermal longjohns!
Northmoon: That sheared mink duffle: bought on eBay for about $1200, worth every penny.
In fact, I'm seriously considering getting a merino shearling 3/4 coat at the end of the season, if I can snag one online at a decent price.
The only extant furs in the family belong to my teensy weensy gran, who still wears them when she ventures out in the cold. She's spent most of this winter as a "hothouse flower," though.
Where I live too, it is the large SUV that marks one as a wealthy suburbanite.
How wonderful for your son that you found the hat and were able to give it to him.
A Honora-ad caught my eyes: baroque sweet water-pearls in denim blue and rusty red. I haven't heard of the brand until I saw the ad. Yay, advertising works. I just know, they have a show at QVC. What is your opinion on Honora pearls? The range of colours is amazing, also the styles (round, ringed, baroque, large, small ...). I would not consider them being cheap but affordable.
It is a pitty there is no shop around in Vienna, I would love to touch them before buying.
Sorry for going really off topic with this comment but I just could not wait for the next posting on pearls to come. Now I will dig into your 25 "pearls"-tagged postings.
Thank you for your expertise.
Mardel: I like hip furs like the Izma coat shown, rather than the big flashy full length coats.
Paula: I'll be honest, which will sound blunt: I would not buy these pearls. Honora are a mass market brand and very successful selling through QVC etc. mostly to people who do not know much. It is only low quality pearls that are dyed those "fashion" colours like denim blue, red and chocolate brown. A good pearl has its own beautiful natural colour, from pure white through pinks and greys to nearly black.
I am not against all dyed pearls. Some unevenly coloured pearls benefit greatly from dying. But the obviously fake colours like red are rather like the poodles I used to see in the 50s dyed pink or green, a distortion of the essence. And you will likely tire of them.
If you want coloured beads, buy quartz, jade, crystal or other minerals. If you are looking for a vendor of very good pearls, consider Pearl Paradise (USA) or Pearls of Joy (UK) for classics. If you like more unusual pearls, I recommend Kojima Company (USA). Each of these companies serve international customers.
Since you wrote me, I am putting up a pearl post tomorrow.
My eye was also caught by the name of the trapper -- my grandmother's mother was a Lafrenièe, so the man may have been some distant cousin several times removed . . .