Mink Lust
Succumbing to an Italian obsession
I am dancing dangerously close to buying fur. Me, a former member of Fund for Animals and inhabitant of Berkeley, where it is more frowned upon to wear fur than to murder your mother. It's everywhere here in Treviso, a small town in northern Italy where I moved last year to be with my boyfriend, Luciano, and to teach at a local English school. I have never seen so many animal pelts in one place, all of them moving in different directions.
There seems to be a standard fur coat for the Italian ladies "of a certain age." I believe it's mink, dark brown, boxy, mid-calf. They're all the same. We call it the uniform and they are everywhere. It seems as if the same lady and the same coat is moving rapidly in all directions across Treviso. One minute she is talking with friends in Piazza dei Signori and the next she is standing in line at Mio Market buying eggplant. There's a scene in the remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair" in which hundreds of men, all dressed in the same suit and bowler hat, crisscross through the Museum of Metropolitan Art in order to outwit the police. I think of this scene as the same fur coat passes me in the street going in opposite directions and my eye follows one and then the other. The world's largest game of switch. They are on parade of course. Italian ladies are always elegant when they go out. Even when riding a bicycle or carrying groceries, they do it in heels, a fur and a matching hat. I stand in my mismatched layers of wool, Thinsulate and Gore-Tex and feel sorry for myself.
I have to admit that I stop and linger at the fur stores, the pelliccerie, the windows exploding with all manner of animal skin. Rabbit, mink, fox and some animals I have not identified, but whatever they were, they seem to be fashionable -- at least their skins are. There's a sexy, smug feeling of fur against your face. Yes, I did it, I tried on a hat. Fox. Black. Very swank. In a department store in Milan, no less. And only 90 euro! What a deal. Then, luckily, the idea that 90 euro is about a month's worth of food passed through my mind at that moment and I could not bring myself to buy it. Instead, I got lost in the sea of mink swirling through the store. Didn't I just see that lady in women's shoes? No, no, it is someone else.
Luciano is shocked at me. And he should be, but I have told him it's a phase. But what a strange phase. I shock myself. Is it just because I see it everywhere? Is it because I am damn cold, colder than I have ever been in more than 20 years in Northern California? I don't know, but all my years of protesting the killing of animals for the sake of fashion have evaporated. I want some. I want to own fur.
One of the teachers at the school is a lovely Irish lady named Ursula. She has been in Treviso for 35 years and is "of a certain age." She succumbed to the lure of fur, years ago. But only a little, as she tells it, "I bought this dress, you see, for almost notting, and it has little mink buttons. I never wear it. Would you like to give it a go?" Sure, I said, without hesitation. After all, I had lost all my fur scruples. The next week Ursula brought in the dress that was indeed drab, but around the collar was a row of six perky mink balls. So I carefully cut the dark brown balls off the dress and sewed them over the buttons of my long, brown dress coat. Immediately I felt like a clown, with little fur pom-poms down the front of my stomach. So I removed them and sewed on only one over the top button, just under my chin. But then, I could not do any more. It was creeping me out to push the needle through the animal skin, even long-dead animal skin. But I have a mink now. And suddenly it is enough fur. I don't want one anymore. I wear my Gore-Tex happily and the five remaining mink balls are in a bowl at home, next to the nuts, just in case I need another fix.
Now I am looking at stilettos ...
Serena Richardson is teaching, exploring and living virtually mink-free in Treviso, Italy.