The real thing Vintage fur is back as 'boom boom' replaces quiet luxury

Gabriela Hearst is an ethical fashion designer with sustainability at the heart of her brand. And she wants to sell you a mink coat.

- Jess Cartner-Morley

Hearst's Paris fashion week show included a coat, jacket and stole made from vintage real fur. "We bought all these old mink coats in Italy, and pieced them together," she said afterwards.

The collection included fake fur made from silk schappe, which is spun from fibre left over from silk cocoon processing.

Real python was used for clothes and accessories with skins from Inversa, an "ethical exotics" company which sources skins from invasive species. The python skin comes from Florida where, according to Inversa, non-native pythons are causing a severe decline in animal populations in the Greater Everglades.

Hearst's minks are part of a rapid rehabilitation of fur in the fashion industry. A moral battle that seemed definitively won has had its lines redrawn, between those who object to real fur on animal welfare grounds, and those who object to fake fur on environmental grounds.

Mass-produced fake fur is often plastic-based and its critics argue that even if made from recycled plastic, a fake fur coat is not sustainable. A plastic bottle can be recycled many times, whereas once converted into a coat, the plastic is destined for landfill.