Recycling fur into reusable products does make environmental sense. Here we explore a designer who is taking this reusable approach to winter fashions.
One designer who wrote her entire business plan around the concept of recycling vintage furs is Mariouche Gagné of Harricana in Quebec. In 1993, to finance her M.A degree Gagné entered a contest sponsored by the Fur Council of Canada. Lacking the materials needed to complete her collection she recycled her mother’s fur coat, to snag the $14,000 second prize. From this experience a business concept was born.
Mariouche Gagné has now been recycling vintage coats since 1994, turning Montreal’s old fur coats into practical hats, mittens and skiwear for Canadians. “I think everything that is going to be thrown away should be reused, even if you don’t believe in the original product,” says Mariouche Gagné, the owner and chief designer of the company. “I’ve recycled more than 50,000 fur coats in 14 years. It takes about ten animals to make a fur coat, so the way I see it, I’ve saved half a million animals by offering people an alternative.”
We are in a different state of mind these days. Following the high-profile “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” supermodel campaign led by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and this past years recession which promoted the ‘waste not, want not’ mentality, and ‘make do’ attitude of consumers, the thought of flaunting a lavish fur coat this Fall just seems downright shameful.
