Maybe you wouldn't buy a new fur coat, but how about a 50-year-old coat you found at a thrift store? Those animals were dead a long time before animal rights groups made wearing fur a no-no. And it's recycling, right? A vintage fur coat still in use means a new one that isn't being produced. Or maybe not: there are those who would argue that vintage furs seen as chic contribute to the demand for new furs. And how horrible are fur coats, anyway, compared to say, wearing leather?
Rachel Poliquin, the author of The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing, says she’s always wondered why the fur fashion has always garnered so much more hatred than other uses of animals like eating meat or making leather clothes, bags, belts, or shoes.
“I can’t help but think about the fact that it’s a luxury item,” she says. “Why are furs considered to be so much more offensive and horrible than eating a steak? In my mind, it’s the same thing. An animal died in both cases. But one, I guess, has got a little more glamour to it. It’s got the Marilyn Monroe aspect.
“As soon as you get into talking about animals, and the appropriate ways we use animals, it’s just such a never-ending pit of questions,” Poliquin continues. “Unless you live your life without using any animal products, and you don’t wear leather shoes or a leather belt, and you don’t eat meat, you’re always a hypocrite, and there is no gray. I think a lot of people like to live in the gray zone.”
An article on furs both old and new at Collector's Weekly features four other fur experts besides Poliquin, and their stances vary. They all give us something to think about. Link
Comments (6)
But I'm totally okay with vintage fur. That animal is already long dead. He was dead before my mother was born, maybe even before my grandmother was born. It's never going to bring him back to just let the old coat made out of him sit until it rots. And purchasing it's not helping keep a currently operating fur farm in business. No one is going to have to breed or kill another animal to replace the one in the collar of a vintage jacket. My dollars spent on the vintage fur aren't going into the pockets of people currently engaged in fur. They're going to the antique shop vendor or thrift shop or estate sale family. That's okay with me. I'm not contributing directly to suffering. And I get to enjoy wearing the fur. And it gives the fur a longer useful lifespan,too, and I find that respectful of the animal. It's already dead, might as well get the most use out of it possible now. Wear it till it gets too shabby to be beautiful as a garment anymore, then maybe craft with the salvageable pieces, or donate them to one of the causes like in the article that use them for baby animals.
Whereas, most every part of a hooved animal is or can be made useful. I'm currently learning the art of leatherwork.
EDIT: This is just my opinion, an off-the-cuff, not very well thought out one.
Get off your high horse. Or I guess your penny farthing. Whatever.
ya know, sometimes its much safer to drive my car on the median, so, I shouldn't get a ticket for that!
34 RCNY § 4-12(p) Bicycles.
(1) Bicycle riders to use bicycle lanes. Whenever a usable path or lane for bicycles has been provided, bicycle riders shall use such path or lane only except under any of the following situations:
(i) When preparing for a turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.
(ii) When reasonably necessary to avoid conditions (including but not limited to, fixed or moving objects, motor vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, pushcarts, animals, surface hazards) that make it unsafe to continue within such bicycle path or lane.
He should be glad he has bike lanes at all. In this part of country the pompous bikers don't have any, they just decide to block traffic as they feel is their god given right.
Ok seriously, bike riders have the LEGAL right to an entire lane of traffic. And really what vehicle driver is in such a hurry and so tight-a-s-s-ed that they get angry at someone on 25 lbs of metal who might slow them down 5-10 seconds before they can pass? Really? Look, most McDonalds drive throughs are open 24 hours a day now, so don't worry, they will still have your big macs and diet sodas ready for you.
Nothing in the driving test I took said that pedestrians and cyclists are second class citizens; you're not supposed to go running them over. Yet, it seems that many drivers apparently took an entirely different test.
At least on the wonderfully well-kept and underused sidewalks here, I'm safe from those drivers who drift entirely too close to the bike lane.
And there are at least a few drivers out there who have the decency to give cyclists the right of way, even when they aren't required to do so.
Well- This guy is probably a 'mostly-obey-the-rules' bicyclist. But there are an awful lot of them around who ignore the law whenever they feel like it. I have been run down on the sidewalk (where else is a pedestrian supposed to walk?) by bikers; I've watched them dart between lanes of traffic to the front of a line of cars stopped at a light; I've watched them ignore the light altogether; they weave and swerve. I don't know. It's a good thing to be more environment conscious. But I've seen a lot of bicyclists who are endangering themselves and a whole lot of other people, too. I don't enjoy sharing the road (or the sidewalk) with them.
Shemp: "Ride in the bike lane! Get off and walk the bike around the obstacles. What's so hard to understand about it?"
So when there's an obstacle (say, a broken down car or some construction) in front of you, and a double-yellow line on the road, will you just stay there forever?
No, you won't, and you don't even have to. Just as the rider can leave the bike lane to avoid obstacles.
I also don't understand how he was pulled over, just turn around and ride away.