Warm Weather Torments City Furriers

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Baby, it has not been cold outside. And though you may be rejoicing over your lower heating bills, pity the poor New York fur vendor. Furriers get one season only, and when the weather is unseasonably warm, as it has been locally, sales of furs plummet.

That’s not the only challenge faced by our local fur merchants. The fur district of New York is struggling, as are manufacturers everywhere, with low-cost competition from China. Also, the trend toward more casual dress has depressed fur demand.”It used to be that women wouldn’t go to the theater without wearing a fur coat” says one old-timer, who did not wish to have his name in print. The head of a group called Fur New York, Stephen Cowit, says that a generation ago there were more than 450 furriers supplying locally made garments to specialty stores and large chains across America. Now there are but a dozen or two.

From Sixth Avenue to Eighth, from 28th Street to 30th Street, the blocks used to be lined and commercial buildings teemed with fur vendors and manufacturers. Those blocks now have a potpourri of wholesale merchants of all kinds, along with a few holdouts in the fur trade.

Most of the furriers in New York these days are third-generation stalwarts, who have created niche businesses supplying small out-of-town shops or longtime clients with products imported from China, or in some cases made from recycled fur. They say that 95% of fur garments are now made in China — even though most furs still come from North America, Scandinavia, and Russia. China is beginning to be a factor in the breeding of fur-producing animals, but is not yet competitive with high-end product available elsewhere. It is pretty hard to see most of these local outfits surviving to the next generation.

This grim assessment comes in spite of a generally positive overall industry climate. Worldwide industry retail sales have increased for the past six years. In 2005, sales totaled $12.8 billion, up 9.1% from the year before. Not bad for an industry that has been under constant attack from animal activists who seemed, several years ago, to be making big inroads against fur consumption.

PETA has not gone away, but the fullout attack on wearing fur seems to have subsided. PETA has broadened its agenda to include a wide variety of pro-animal activism. Furriers do not dismiss the anti-fur campaigns but reckon that one cold snap normally dulls their impact.

In fact, demand recently around the world has been strong enough to boost the price of raw fur pelts to record levels. In the past two years, mink pelt prices are estimated to have risen to between 35% and 40%. Because it takes between 45 and 70 pelts to make a high quality coat, and because good quality pelts are now running between $50 and $60 apiece, the basic wholesale cost for a coat is about $2,250 to $4,200. The retail mark-up is normally two to three times. That’s a big step up from a few years ago when depressed sales led to coats routinely marked down to $2,000.

The good news in the fur industry is that wearing fur has become a status symbol for a whole new group, described as the “urban trade.” Rappers and rockers have picked up fur as a luxury must-have, along with Cristal champagne and heavy-duty bling.

Mark Kaufman, head of Kaufman Furs on West 30th Street, features this crowd in the “celebrity corner” on his Web site. He poses in photos with Lil’ Kim, Busta Rhymes and 50 Cent — all decked out in, well, not your mother’s ranch mink. The styling is flashy, and the prices are high. Mr. Kaufman says the urban group accounted for perhaps 80% of his sales last year; this year the percentage may be about 65%. He explains fur’s attraction to this crowd as stemming from a desire to outdress their peers, and also an inclination toward fancy dress for social events.

Whatever the motivation, Mr. Kaufman is not complaining. Instead, he’s designing garments especially for this crowd. One that caught our eye was a camouflage military-style jacket made of multicolored sheared dyed mink, with a price tag of $2,000.

On another block, Fur Fashion Warehouse is also tempting the urban crowd by hanging in the window a basketball-style jersey made entirely of dyed sheared mink. The $2,500 sleeveless shirt is available in red, white and blue with Bulls written (in different color mink) on the back, along with the number 5. Better yet — they have some blanks. For a slightly higher price your name can be on the jersey. Are we thinking Christmas presents?


The New York Sun

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