Phil Morely
DCL
In the pre-PETA, pre-green consciousness days, fur was a pervasive status symbol. Mink coats and stoles adorned the shoulders of Hollywood starlets; beaver, rabbit and even fox were all the rage. A 1930s photo of my grandmother shows her in a knee—length fur coat—she came from a working-class family of nine in Wisconsin, and remembers each of her sisters saving their earnings from their factory jobs for their first fur. Today, two of those once-treasured coats hang in the backs of our closets—one beaver, one mink.
For reasons that range from the philosophical to the stylistic, thousands of old fur coats are sitting in closets, unused. But old fur can get a new life, and make amends, through Coats for Cubs, a Humane Society campaign that turns it into comforting blankets for injured animals in wildlife rehabilitation centers.
Imagine: Frisky the abandoned baby fox and Betsy the broken-legged beaver will cuddle, wrestle and burrow with squares or sleeves of the handed-down coat you're never going to wear. The Coats for Cubs website has a darling picture or two, and all the donation information you'll need. You can donate directly, or through Buffalo Exchange's Coats for Cubs drive, now through Earth Day 2009.
