Modern Living: The Skin Game

MINK and sable, the Big Two of the fur world, can still be seen on the salon racks, regal as ever in traditional brown or black. But their luster is somewhat diminished this season by bright new competitors designed to make the fur—and the fur sales—fly. Right up there with the mink and the sable, the chinchilla, the ermine and the fox, are such low-status pelts as wolf, monkey, weasel, bull and yak. Without examining the label, however, even a zoologist would have trouble identifying the newcomers. For the furs have become checked, striped, flowered and wholly unrecognizable. Mostly they have...