Consumers are receiving mixed signals, with some saying fur is back and others saying it’s on its last legs. So does someone have the story wrong? Let’s see where the evidence points.

Compared with the 1980s, when fur sales were strong in all traditional markets, today’s trade has shrunk, a fact it blames on the anti-fur lobby. But it also says fur is making a modest comeback. In contrast, anti-fur campaigners insist the fur trade is terminal.

Meanwhile the media can't decide. Some editorialise that fur is fashionable again, while one presenter flaunts fur at a football match and another wears coyote at a New Year's Eve show. Yet others say fur is finished, though they are sometimes transparent about pushing an agenda.

In our quest for the truth, let’s journey back in time, hoping this will help explain where fur really stands today.

Animal Rights Playbook

The modern animal rights playbook was written in the 1970s on the blood-stained ice floes of Atlantic Canada. With a cast of cute seal pups and “evil” sealers wielding hakapiks, protesters learned that all they had to do was provoke a fight (think Paul Watson) while Brigitte Bardot added credibility and sex appeal. The media lapped it up, and the campaign was hugely effective.

Another landmark came in 1990 when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched the campaign “I’d rather go naked than wear fur”. Everyone knew that sex sold, but this was the first time animal rights had been conflated with naked women. Again the campaign was a media hit, prompting PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk to tell The New Yorker in 2003: “We are complete press sluts”. (PETA officially “retired” the campaign in 2020, but this was probably just to give media an excuse to run old campaign photos.)

Meanwhile, the fur trade was losing ground. The media (and their viewers) were by now hooked on images of stressed animals and naked women, and the fur trade couldn’t compete. Plus, funds were running low for public relations, and while some people were determined to fight back, they couldn’t agree on how to do this.

New Tactics

Then the 2000s arrived and the anti-fur lobby expanded its already strong arsenal with some new tactics.

Pushing local fur bans: One tactic has been to push US city governments to ban production and/or sales of fur. The fur trade must then file lawsuits to have ordinances overturned.

Almost all of the anti-fur lobby's victories so far have come in Californian cities, followed by a statewide ban from 2023. Notably absent has been the snowball effect campaigners hoped for in major cities and states elsewhere.

Still, it’s an effective tactic even when ban attempts fail, since it generates media exposure and costs the fur trade money. This has happened in cities where fur is more entrenched, like New York City in 2020, Denver in 2024, and Chicago in 2025.

Pressuring players to switch from real fur to fake: Another tactic has been to get key players to drop real fur in favour of fake, with the anti-fur lobby then taking credit for players “seeing the light”. While a few early converts required little persuasion, most victories have only come about after harassing executives with methods like demonstrating outside workers’ homes. Targets have been diverse, ranging from luxury brands and designers, to department stores, fashion shows and even magazines.

Fur farming bans: Yet another tactic has been to pressure governments to ban fur farming or pass regulations so draconian that it makes no sense to continue.

Though in its third decade, this campaign gained fresh legs during the Covid-19 pandemic as activists stoked fear that mink farms breed zoonotic diseases. This fear was key in the 2020 move by Denmark – then the world's leading mink farmer – to cull its entire herd, and British Columbia’s 2021 decision to phase out mink farming.

This campaign has been especially effective in the European Union, with most members having already introduced partial or total bans, the latest being Poland. Meanwhile, the "Fur Free Europe" citizens' initiative gathered over 1.5 million signatures opposed to fur farming and the sale of farmed products, obliging the European Commission to decide by next March whether to propose an EU-wide ban.

Whether an EU-wide ban happens is still unknown, plus the issue of wild fur will remain on the table. But with some 70% of fur currently coming from farms, and global output contracting steadily, who, if anyone, will pick up the slack?

So kudos to the anti-fur lobby. Though it has often fought dirty, its tactics have undeniably hurt the fur trade.

Plastic Windfall

But another version of this story has it that fur is making a comeback. If true, it all began with a windfall for the trade: a miscalculation by its opponents.

When the modern animal rights movement emerged in the 1970s, Western society was made keenly aware of animal welfare issues. These remain important today, but have been superseded by existential issues threatening the very future of the planet.

In recent years, society has undergone a sea change, with terms like “sustainability”, “climate change”, “global warming” and “renewable energy” entering everyday usage. And the cause célèbre is how to wean ourselves off fossil fuels like petroleum.

Of course, the fur trade has always known fur is sustainable: it’s durable, biodegradable and renewable, and its environmental footprint is a lot smaller than the anti-fur lobby claims. So logically, society's shift in priorities should benefit real fur, and work against fake fur made of non-renewable, polluting, non-biodegradable, petroleum-based plastics that only add to the tons of microplastics already in our watersheds and oceans.

So what have most anti-fur groups done? Rather than keeping their message simple and opposing all fur, real and fake, they have thrown their support behind fake fur as a replacement for the real deal, falsely claiming it is more sustainable!

This is now backfiring. Not only has fake fur kept the furry look (real or fake) on the fashion radar, it has also exposed the anti-fur lobby as dishonest.

Perhaps the biggest shock for the fur trade came in 2017, when Gucci announced it was dropping real fur. Both the world-famous brand and its animal rights handlers effused about how the move enhanced sustainability, and for a while the fur trade feared society would simply fall for this deception. But now, the media and consumers are at least questioning whether fake fur was the right way to go.

The anti-fur lobby, meanwhile, has attempted damage control, such as by calling plastic garments “vegan clothing”, and promising we'll all be wearing “bio-fur” soon, made of fungi, nettles, pineapple and the like.

Maybe one day we will. But for now, almost all manufacturers of fake fur still prefer the petrochemical kind, so the harm it does to the environment continues.

Recycled Vintage Fur

Then, to confuse matters further, along came vintage fur.

As any fashionista knows, recycled and remodeled vintage furs have been in vogue for a few seasons. Many come from thrift stores and are at least 40 years old, though with demand still strong, it's inevitable that dwindling supplies are seeing ages fall.

For an example of just how vintage furs have confused the picture, look at media coverage last February of the New York and London Fashion Weeks.

Hoping as always for a new angle, on Feb. 16 the New York Times ran a piece titled “What happened to the stigma of wearing fur?” “[I]n January,” wrote Jessica Iredale, “women and men all over town were busting their furs out of storage in what felt like an abrupt reversal of social values.” For years, wearing fur in the US and Europe had felt taboo. “Except, suddenly, people don’t seem to care – especially if the wearer can assert the mantle of ‘vintage’, as no animals were freshly killed and upcycling old clothes is more virtuous than buying new.”

The Wall Street Journal followed suit on Feb. 18, with “Fashion turned on fur. Young customers want more“. Then on Feb. 19, the New York Post ran with “Real fur is making a comeback after years of exile. ‘You’ll see it on the runway again’“. And on Feb. 28, Women’s Wear Daily declared that “Furry textures – some real, some faux” were all over the runways in New York. In short, America’s most populous city was awash in fur again!

The irony was that last December, New York Fashion Week announced a ban on fur from 2026!

Even more ironic was a report in The Standard (Feb. 21) during London Fashion Week titled “How luxury fell back in love with real fur and crocodile skins”. It was commenting on the street scene rather than on the show’s runways, because it couldn’t do otherwise. London Fashion Week had already banned fur, in 2023, followed the next year by exotic skins and feathers!

What message were these reports sending to consumers?

Was the real story not about vintage furs, but about the resurgence of fur in general? Were the likes of New York and London Fashion Weeks just part of an ivory tower trying to move past fur, while the streets said the opposite?

Predictions

So where does this leave the fur trade today?

Let's first agree who we’re talking about. I'll call it the Western fur trade, that caters primarily to certain consumers in two regions: North America and Europe, and an East Asian bloc, centering on China and South Korea, that buys a lot of pelts at Western auctions and has designers showing on Western runways. Millions of fur users, especially Indigenous peoples in the High North, don't belong in this category, and won't stop using fur just because of a few bans passed in Western capitals.

That said, the Western fur trade has been under attack for decades, giving the anti-fur lobby plenty of time to refine some highly effective tactics.

No one will deny that these tactics have hurt the fur trade, but many believe the trade has now turned a corner to recovery. Assuming this is true, how durable that recovery is depends on the trade's ability to change.

One change that may be unavoidable is a fall in total output of farmed fur, plus a shift in suppliers. When shortages seemed likely in the past, North American, European and (in this century) Chinese farms simply increased production. But this time around will be different.

Obviously, EU production is falling and may stop entirely, but it's also down in North America due to bad publicity from the anti-fur lobby, and no one is expanding right now. So unless Chinese farmers step up again, or another country fills the breach, a supply shortage could be looming that requires the fur trade to operate at a reduced scale.

There are, however, a few avenues that are already expanding.

One is sales of wild fur. Pelt prices are edging up for some species; for example, at Fur Harvesters Auction last month, interest was strong in bobcats, marten and wild mink. Also, the number of trappers is increasing in many places. And since trapping is now widely recognised as an important conservation tool, choosing wild fur is one way consumers can show their support for sustainable use. There is still opposition to trapping where wildlife and human habitats coincide, notably among dog walkers, but also on the rise are problem animals like coyotes with mange, rabid raccoons and destructive beavers, so trapping won't disappear anytime soon.

Other avenues for expansion are better opportunities for artisanal designers and online retailers, especially in remote areas. Factors fueling this growth include the departure of most luxury brands and department stores from the real fur market, the closure of many brick-and-mortar furriers in expensive downtown locations, and of course the rise of the Internet, which makes it possible to run businesses in remote locations that were not viable before.

Whether all this translates into a comeback for fur remains to be seen, but the signs so far are promising. For now, there's a paradox: on the one hand, the anti-fur lobby continues its efforts to end the fur trade, with a lot of success. But on the other, many media reports and eye-witness accounts say fur is back in fashion. Who is right? Only time will tell for sure.

SEE ALSO:

Fur is firmly back in fashion - and even more divisive than ever. BBC, April 8, 2025.

Fur sure: In the era of sustainability, a winter icon makes a comeback. Buffalo Spree, Dec. 26, 2025.

As real fur creeps back into fash­ion, is faux the way to go? Daily Telegraph, Dec. 27, 2025.

The news about fur is so muddled these days, it’s no wonder some people are confused.

Take the surging popularity of used furs. As we reported recently, GenZ is embracing “vintage” as a guilt-free way to enjoy the comfort and beauty of fur. After all, the animals died long ago, and reusing old clothing is better for the planet than contributing to mountains of discarded – usually petroleum-based – fast fashion. Fine, but why stop there? After all, today’s new furs will be tomorrow’s vintage.

Similarly, shearling is trending on fashion runways, with politically-correct designers claiming it is not fur at all. But isn’t it? Shearling is an animal hide (sheepskin) processed with the hair attached, the same as any other fur. Some find it reassuring that sheep are raised for food, that my shearling jacket is just the packaging from someone’s rack of lamb – a distinction that probably wouldn’t impress sheep. In any case, Indigenous and other trappers eat beaver, muskrat, seal, and other fur animals. What’s the difference?

Meanwhile, anti-fur campaigning continues: governments are lobbied to ban fur production; many apparel companies have stopped selling it; and Vogue – following the retirement of their dauntlessly independent editor, Anna Wintour – recently announced that fur will no longer appear in the magazine, even in advertising.

So, is fur back in fashion, or isn’t it? Why is sheepskin now cool, but mink and beaver not so much? And how does fur become more ethical with age, or is it just the lower price point that draws young people to “vintage”?

Quite the muddle.

Why All the Fuss About Fur?

Of course, there’s nothing new in muddled thinking about fur. Animal activists have spent decades tarring fur trapping as cruel – even as millions were invested by governments and industry to assure the humaneness of trapping.1

Activists also denounce mink farming, claiming that it’s cruel to keep “wild animals” in pens. But mink have been raised on farms in North America since the 1870s. After more than 150 generations of selective breeding they are very different than their wild cousins – they are twice the size, much tamer, and well adapted to life on the farm.2

The fur trade is not a rogue industry, it has adopted responsible practices just like other agricultural sectors. From an animal-welfare perspective, it sometimes scores better: wild furbearers roam freely in nature until the moment they’re captured; farmed mink – precisely because they are not used for food – are spared the long truck ride to distant abattoirs. And yet, in a society where literally billions of animals are eaten each year, the fur trade has been treated as a pariah. Go figure.

Sustainability

Another example of muddled thinking is the belief that we should stop using fur if we wish to protect nature. When Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri announced that his prestigious designer label would go “fur-free”, in 2018, he claimed this demonstrated “our absolute commitment to making sustainability an intrinsic part of our business.” Other companies followed suit, revealing how little they understood (or cared?) about what sustainability really means.

Many wild species are indeed threatened by climate change, pollution, urban sprawl, and other challenges. Some fear we are witnessing a “Sixth Mass Extinction”. But the modern fur trade does not deplete wildlife populations; the fur we use today comes from abundant populations. Government regulations ensure that only part of the surplus that nature produces is taken each year – which is true sustainability. This is why Greenpeace, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other serious environmental conservation groups do not oppose the fur trade. The North American fur trade is a conservation success story that deserves to be better known.

And so, anti-fur campaigners – and companies that yield to their pressure – are not promoting sustainability at all. Quite the contrary: because “animal rights” groups oppose using any animal products – no fur, no leather, no wool, not even silk -- they provide cover for petroleum-based synthetics that are not renewable or biodegradable, that leach micro-plastics into the environment each time they are worn or washed – but are now often marketed as virtuously “vegan”.

The Medium Is the Message

Confusion about fur is not accidental. Animal-rights advocates are not interested in acknowledging the animal-welfare and conservation achievements of the fur trade because they oppose any use of animals. As PeTA’s website clearly asserts: “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.” But because few people are prepared to follow PeTA to such lofty heights of moral purity – only 4% of North Americans are vegetarian; barely 1% say they are vegan – attacks on fur (and other animal-based industries) are disguised as animal-welfare campaigns, sensationalizing real or purported abuses.

Industry efforts to correct misinformation face the problem that, in an age of information overload, attention spans are limited, especially for subjects remote from most people’s daily lives. One gory photo trumps volumes of expert testimony.

Meanwhile, to retain fickle audiences, the media are drawn to controversy and confrontation. Trappers and mink farmers diligently tending their traplines or barns are not news; a dozen shouting protesters make better television – especially if some are topless. “We’re media sluts,” says PeTA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk. “We didn’t make the rules but we learned to play the game.”

The game is also rIgged demographically. Not so long ago, most North Americans still had family living on farms; summer vacations provided hands-on education about where food comes from – and respect for the skills and knowledge of people who fish, hunt, and raise livestock.

Now, for the first time in human history, most of us live in cities, with little or no contact with the land. Children are raised on Disney fantasies of nature, where the lion frolics with the lamb. The animals we frequent are mostly our pets, which increasingly are treated as “children”. Often, they sleep in our beds. When the only canine you know is your dog, it is easy to be upset by images of coyote trapping or fox farming – especially when the images are carefully selected to shock.

Fur is denounced as an “unnecessary luxury”, catering to spoiled rich people. But, despite its luxury image, the fur trade remains small-scale and artisanal; it lacks the financial and other resources that larger industries can deploy in response to misleading activist campaigns.

Protection Racket

Confusion is also caused when anti-fur campaigns become self-reinforcing feedback loops. When Canada Goose and other prominent apparel brands stop using fur, it suggests that something must be wrong with it; people must no longer want it. But the real reasons why companies drop fur have little to do with ethics or consumer demand. Store invasions, rowdy protests at the homes of CEOs, social media attacks, and other aggressive tactics simply make fur too hot to handle. When security and brand-reputation costs for a small segment of a company’s sales become too great, dropping fur is a business decision.

Consumers could also be bullied – especially because most were women. (A leading animal-rights theorist once told me he thought PeTA would show more integrity if they protested biker gangs for wearing leather jackets!) Many women stopped wearing fur, not because they thought it was wrong but for fear of having paint thrown at them. Ethics, indeed!

The Future of Fur

So where do all these mixed messages leave us? Is the recent popularity of vintage fur and shearlings just a fashion blip, or the beginning of a real shift in the tectonic plates of social consciousness?

One encouraging sign: despite decades of negative publicity, most people have a more positive view of fur than animal activists would have us believe. An opinion poll commissioned by the Natural Fibers Alliance, in 2022, found that two-thirds (65%) of Canadians think wearing fur is acceptable so long as the industry is well regulated and animals are treated humanely. Only one-in-five (21%) disagrees – with just 10% saying they “strongly disagree”.

In the US, same story: 61% agree that brands and retailers can responsibly use and sell animal-based products including leather, wool, silk, and fur. Only 9% strongly disagree.3

More than three-quarters (77%) of Canadians also believe that wearing fur is “a matter of personal choice” – similar to findings in previous US studies – putting the lie to activist claims that the public supports their call for the governments to ban fur farms and retail fur sales.

Especially interesting: for the first time in the 25 years that I have reviewed such surveys, younger people (18-25) now see fur in a more positive light than their elders. GenZ’s love affair with fur is not a fluke.

People are becoming more aware of the environmental costs of non-biodegradable, petroleum-based “fast fashion” – not to mention concerns about the leaching of micro plastics into the food chain each time these synthetics are worn or washed. Bits of plastic are now being found in marine life, breast milk, and in our brains. Cruelty-free indeed.

Bottom line: people do need clothing, and if our goal is to embrace more sustainable lifestyles, fur checks all the boxes. Made from a natural, renewable resource, fur apparel is extremely long-wearing, can be re-styled as fashions change, and is often passed from one generation to the next – as highlighted by the current popularity of vintage. From an environmental perspective, fur is not a “frivolous luxury”.

From a cultural perspective, the fur trade preserves a treasure-trove of human knowledge, skills, and culture. Indigenous and other trappers are some of the last representatives of our hunter-gatherer heritage; with most of us now living in cities, they are our eyes and ears on the land, often the first to sound the alarm when pollution or habitat destruction threaten wildlife. Mink are raised on multi-generational family farms, providing income and employment for embattled rural communities. Fur artisans (my own grandfather was one) maintain extraordinary handcraft skills that have been transmitted through generations.

None of this means that everyone will want to wear fur. But the popularity of vintage furs and shearlings bucks the – until recently – seemingly irresistible push to “cancel” the fur trade. As Leonard Cohen sang: “There’s a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in!” Time will tell whether GenZ’s new interest in fur will open the door to a more honest appreciation of this remarkable North American heritage industry.

FOOTNOTES

1) The program directed by the Fur Institute of Canada (since 1983) allows new trap designs to be rigorously tested and certified. It has supported new state and provincial regulations, trapper training programs, and, in 1997, the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards (AIHTS) – the world’s first international animal-welfare treaty. See also: Neal Jotham: A life dedicated to humane trapping. Truth About Fur, 2016.

2) Mink housing, nutrition, and care standards are set out in codes of practice developed by animal scientists and veterinarians, under the auspices of the National Animal Care Council.

3) Natural Fibers Alliance, personal communication.