This article is taken from the November 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £25.
Until jackboots became the footwear du jour, other angsts more pressing, one of my great distastes had been for “domino liberalism”. I don’t mean liberalism, per se, obv. I live to out-woke the most strenuously awakened. Besides, liberals feel so quaintly old world, these days, mouths being so very frothing.
No, I just mean that thing whereby one liberal viewpoint collapses limply into another until an entire personality — term used necessarily loosely — is born. Have a bit of a think, people. Engage the old brain.
A stance such as being pro-nuclear energy does not preclude, say, being an eco-warrior. Indeed, the two may slot together nicely. Full disclosure: I’m talking about being a fur-sporting vegetarian here, which blows the tiny minds of pretty much everyone.
I renounced meat at the age of 14, and have not succumbed since, despite my siblings finding it amusing to place beef in my mouth whilst I sleep. My motivations weren’t a Bambi-inspired be-kind-to-fwuffy-animals thing, much as I admire hounds.
I gave up meat for “macroeconomic” reasons: something to do with its being more cost effective to feed grain to plenty of people than to livestock to feed a few. And because I was an extremely arsey teen. This too hasn’t changed.
Either way, going without flesh works for me. I can’t really remember what meat tastes like: some of it sort of … beige, the rest rather more … brown? I don’t appear to be seriously ill, despite one brother’s theory that my energy deficit is caused by a diet built solely of “capreses”, uttered with northern scorn.
In fact, my vegetarianism issues from the same source as my pelt wearing: a concern for sharing resources that considers both humans and animals. Real fur boasts far greener credentials than fake, being a natural, renewable, biodegradable resource. Meanwhile, the majority of faux furs are made from petroleum-based products derived from non-renewable sources. Moreover, the real stuff becomes an heirloom: passed from mother to daughter to camp grandson. My mink will be doing the rounds a lot longer than I will.
I say all this because there’s a lot of fur about, both on and off the catwalks. As far back as February, Grazia was referring to it as fashion’s “unofficial dress code”. Some of this is fake, some shearling (the skin of a recently shorn sheep), which — like leather — zealots tend to overlook.
However, a fair bit is the real deal, influenced by celebrities for whom the “mob wife” trend is a daily reality, and Gen Z whose “you do you” ethos, planet-saving and poverty have brought vintage skins back into the fold.
It’s also a testament to so-called “personality” dressing, that is, looking as if you might possess one, rather than donning some dun-coloured uniform. Dior’s current campaign even features ermine, albeit presumably this is faux as those spots look suspiciously regular.
I shall be going about pelted, as always, once the chill sets in. Amongst sundry fur hats, muffs and tippets, I purchased the world’s most beauteous mink coat at Goodwood Revival a few years back.
Jet black, vintage, unworn, an Eighties take on the Forties doing Tudor, it is the garment of my not-so young life: Grace Jones meets Henry VIII via Garbo. As I tried it for size, a passing gent declared: “You look sensational, but when will you ever wear it?” I sport it constantly: to walk the dog, do the bins, over silk negligees and satin dancing slippers when forced to flee across mitteleuropean borders at 3am.
I assumed I’d be pushed in front of a tube train sharpish, given that maniacs have threatened to do this when I have patently been sporting teddy bear. Instead, all that has happened is that charming Pret gay boys declare me fabulous whilst bestowing free cups of tea, or children summon me with “Here, kitty, kitty”, then stroke me.
Meanwhile, I am 400,000 times warmer than those lemmings in high-tech puffers. Well might fur be considered practical apparel wherever humans freeze, from wind-lashed Chicago to Baltic St Petersburg.
The only place I have felt remotely uncomfortable was when my boyfriend took me to our local market — not the twee farmers’ variety, but a lawless sarf London riot in which crooks offload stolen tools and swag they have looted from the Co-Op.
Still, when someone offered to sell me some silver, his colleague mocked: “She won’t want it — she in’erited.” #oldmoneyaesthetic? Clearly. This sort of thing qualifies as a result for those of us from Birmingham.
