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Sheffield boutique admits to selling real fur coat

By Michael Smith
Published: 19/01/2010

Animal rights campaigners demonstrated outside Sheffield boutique Sa-kis last weekend, after a coat made with real animal fur was discovered for sale.

The shop, based in the city’s trendy Devonshire Quarter, sells a £410 coat, now reduced to £245 online, lined with fur from a murmansky, a raccoon dog native to China, Korea, Japan and Russia. Although the murmansky is not endangered, animal rights group PETA have published reports of chinese fur farms skinning the animals alive.

Protester James Douglas said: "[Sa-kis] is one of the only stores in Sheffield which is selling real fur; most places sell fake fur. The shop across the road sells second-hand fur, which we disagree with on the grounds that it perpetuates the fashion of real fur, but Sa-kis is selling new real fur, which is worse."

Sa-kis admit to stocking the coat, but claim to have been unaware the trim was made of real fur. They say that once they were made aware of it, the removable trim was taken off all the stock in the shop.

Despite this, the coat, designed by Norwegian label Parajumpers, is still for sale on the boutique’s website, advertised as featuring a murmansky fur trim. A representative from the store said that they would e-mail anyone who ordered it encouraging them to accept it with the trim removed, but would not change the listing or photograph.

Assistant Manager Ian Theasby said: "When we bought it the agent didn’t specify that it was real fur, but then checking the label we found that yes, it was. So we had no problem in taking the fur off the display."

But he said that the boutique would not make an official statement promising not to stock fur in the future, because if they made the same mistake again they could end up in court.

He said: “The stuff we buy is on a no return basis and we can’t risk losing £1,500. We’re only a small independent business. I think the real problem here is the big magazines like Vogue International. Anna Wintour always wears fur, and brought fur back into the realm of public consumption."

Vogue Editor-In-Chief Wintour controversially defended the magazine’s coverage of fur in fashion, when she told trade journal Women’s Wear Daily “Vogue is there to report on the fashion industry. Fur is part of fashion and we will continue to report on it as long as that is the case.”

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