{"id":67297,"date":"2015-12-14T02:58:45","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T07:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=67297"},"modified":"2015-12-14T02:58:45","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T07:58:45","slug":"accidental-fur-boston-company-turns-roadkill-into-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/12\/14\/accidental-fur-boston-company-turns-roadkill-into-fashion\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Accidental fur\u2019: Boston company turns roadkill into fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BOSTON \u2013 Pamela Paquin\u2019s source for fashion is either \u201ctres chic\u201d or will make you shriek.<\/p>\n

She creates neck muffs, leg warmers, hats, purses and more from roadkill, or \u201caccidental fur,\u201d as she prefers to call it.<\/p>\n

As owner of Petite Mort Furs, a 2-year-old Boston-area company, she said she\u2019s offering the fur industry an alternative to wild fur trapping and large-scale fur farms.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll this fur is being thrown away,\u201d Paquin said. \u201cIf we can pick that up, we never have to kill another fur-bearing animal again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keith Kaplan, head of the Fur Information Council of America, said his trade group considers all North American furs to already be ethically and environmentally responsible.<\/p>\n

\u201cProduction of fur in North America is highly regulated with guidelines set through years and years (and millions of dollars) of scientific study,\u201d he said via email, declining to comment on Paquin\u2019s company or the general idea of using roadkill for fur. \u201cIn fact, the populations of every species used by the industry today are as abundant, or more abundant, than they were a century ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Animal rights groups also have mixed feelings about roadkill fur.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d just say it\u2019s in very poor taste,\u201d said Kara Holmquist at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, declining to elaborate.<\/p>\n

Lisa Lange, a senior vice president at People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals, or PETA, said that there\u2019s \u201cnever an excuse\u201d to wear fur, but that it\u2019s \u201cfar better\u201d to wear roadkill than farmed fur.<\/p>\n

Others worry her products could only serve to prolong the industry they\u2019ve spent decades trying to defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cA business that promotes wearing real fur as fashionable and acceptable may well create more demand for fur from all sources, and could give all fur wearers a shield from legitimate criticism,\u201d said Virginia Fuller, of the Boston-area Citizens to End Animal Suffering and Exploitation, or CEASE.<\/p>\n

Paquin counters that the stigma around fur has eroded in recent years.<\/p>\n

Greater spending power in China, Russia and elsewhere, as well as greater use of fake fur trimmings on clothes and accessories, has revived its popularity.<\/p>\n

That demand, she said, is part of the reason she chose to jump into the industry despite having no background in fashion or design, and after working mostly office jobs for environmental and sustainability organizations.<\/p>\n

The Fur Information Council of America said the U.S. alone recorded $1.5 billion in fur sales in 2014. Globally, it\u2019s part of an over $35 billion industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly advocacy had failed,\u201d Paquin said. \u201cAlternatives must be found. Making use of animals that would otherwise be thrown away is sensible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heidi Forbes \u00d6ste, a San Francisco-area resident who purchased a fox fur neck muff from Petit Mort last summer, said she\u2019s surprised at the pushback from animal rights groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re being short-sighted,\u201d she said. \u201cWe should be encouraging people to buy sustainable fur. These are animals that are already dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Products by Petit Mort, which means \u201cthe little death\u201d in French and also describes the sensation of orgasm, are decidedly high-end, ranging from $800 to $2,000, depending on the product and type of fur used. They can be found online and on Boston\u2019s fashionable Newbury Street, where the company rents display space in a handmade goods market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe value that these products have is that they\u2019re handmade, local and last a lifetime,\u201d Paquin explains. \u201cThat\u2019s not just couture and high end, but that\u2019s also sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each piece comes with a personal note explaining where and when the animal was found.<\/p>\n

Paquin works with animal control specialists to gather the carcasses, but skins many of them herself. She considers the process almost sacred and doesn\u2019t care much for the \u201croadkill\u201d label.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a turnoff,\u201d Paquin said. \u201cIt cheapens my product.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOSTON \u2013 Pamela Paquin\u2019s source for fashion is either \u201ctres chic\u201d or will make you shriek. She creates neck muffs, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":67304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1080],"class_list":["post-67297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fashion-and-beauty","tag-ap","mauthors-philip-marcelo","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}