Art fur is now a fashionable staple food

Thanks to the “Mob Wife” trends and technological progress in the manufacture, which make artificial fur appear deceptively real, Fake fur has prevailed on the catwalks and in retail.

While the Paris Womenswear Fashion Week for the autumn/winter 2025 season, which has been taking place in the past ten days, the material was presented in almost every conceivable form. Whether as a stole, a luxurious long coat or as a detail on jackets and accessories-once with mob wife, Jackie Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor and European aristocracy experienced fur look is experiencing a comprehensive renaissance.

Thanks to highly developed imitations, art fur is now so realistic that many can no longer distinguish it from real fur – a great advantage for manufacturers: inside like the French company Ecopel.

“Since last winter, all brands-from luxury labels to mainstream brands such as Zara-have been offering an unprecedented selection of fake fur,” explains Christopher Sarfati, founder and CEO from Ecopel, which supplies around 300 brands, to the AFP.

Real fur had almost completely disappeared from the scene due to animal welfare concerns. Large fashion houses such as Saint Laurent, Gucci and Chanel have banished it from their collections, and the London Fashion Week was completely prohibited on the catwalk. In Paris, however, real fur is not prohibited, and organizations such as Peta and Brigitte Bardot Foundation protested last week in the French capital against the “return of the fur”.

They fear that the ubiquitous presence of fake for the interest in real fur could revive – and thus undo a decades of development in which real fur became a synonym for cruelty to animals.

Upcycling or fake fur?

“I find fake fur cooler. It looks nicer. And we reject cruelty to animals, ”said Bryn Taubensee and Patric DiCaprio, the designers of the US label Vaquera, which presented a collection of artificial fur in Paris.

The renowned French fashion journalist Matthieu Bard Deliere stated: “You can count the brands that show real fur on the catwalk.”

According to Ecopel, which closely observes the market, 89 percent of the fur shown on the Milan Fashion Week consisted of fibers from fibers, and 62 percent in New York.

Two labels that used real fur during the Paris fashion week-the newcomer brand Hodakova by the Swedish designer Ellen Hodakova Larsson and Gabriela Hearst from Uruguay-explained that they only upcycles existing fur.

Some designers: Inside, argue that this is more environmentally friendly than art fur, since the latter mostly consists of polyester and other petroleum -based synthetic fibers.

“Vintage-Mink was separated and carefully put together in a family-run studio,” said Hearst about the murmature, which she presented on her show.

The AFP reported the Parisian fur business Sam Rone that its sales figures had increased since last year. Second-hand fur is particularly in demand-especially with the gen z, which is enthusiastic about vintage fashion and is increasingly browsing into the wardrobes of their grandmothers.

If real fur raises ethical concerns and is environmentally harmful to art, for conscious consumers: an alternative in newly developed, plastic -free materials seems to lie inside. Ecopel claims to have found a solution and launched a 100 percent plant-based art fur variant.

“Brands will no longer be able to say in the future: ‘We do not use art fur because it consists of polyester and petroleum,” emphasizes Sarfati.