By Jill Siefert

Fur. Well, it wasn’t listed on the top 80 must-have items of the new fabulous magazine, LOVE. Although, crocodile and python were. I’m hoping that for their Fall edition- fur will be listed as the number one fashion must have. But it got me to thinking, why is the consumer not outraged at crocodile shoe, croc handbags and python hobo bags? Why does it seem that fur always gets a bad rap or is often overlooked?

Well for Fall 2009 I have news, after just returning from fur fashion week NAFFEM held in Montreal, I learned oodles of information and became informed. First of all, being a fashionista, I had no idea that Fur even held it’s own fashion week. NAFFEM, North American Fur and Fashion Exposition in Montreal is one of the most important fur fashion marketing events in the world and was launched in 1981. There are over 200 companies and sales account for more than $100 million in orders within 3 days of the show. What an eye-opener for me! In the coming weeks, I will begin to share with you all that I learned.

For starters, the fact that the fur industry has a completely separate event outside the Bryant park tents- was news in itself. There were hundreds of furriers, retailers and buyers at the trade show. Also included in NAFFEM, were numerous fashion shows, even a fantastic student re-style competition, seminars both on the eco side of the fur fashion trade and an excellent trend presentation by Elle’s stellar senior fashion and style director Kate Lanphear. But there were no other fashion journalists, even WWD was not present. This gave me thought, why would a 15 billion + industry have no voice in the world of consumers and the trade? I felt as though I had come upon a huge secret.

I won’t speak for Kate but I believe she was impressed too- she did mention her love for fur began at a young age... and that never left her. She noted how many designers did choose to use fur in their fall collections for 2009.  Her direct quote: “Designers are getting increasingly inventive with fur- especially vibrant colors or interesting combinations of different types of fur. For items that are truly covetable think beyond the basic mink or sable. We are seeing such special, unique pieces that women will find absolutely irresistible.”

The fact remains that the world-wide, fur apparel sales passed the $15 billion mark during the Winter of 2007, up 11% from the previous year. (These statistics do not include mass market or fur trimmed articles sold in fashion or department stores.”)

And facts do not lie, there is clearly a luxury market here that is growing and will continue to grow in the future with better educated wholesalers, retailers and consumers.

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