Here it is, another Fun Monday! Amy W is hosting this week, and her assignment was to "find something in your closet you are keeping for some ungodly reason (the sweatshirt with all the holes, the jeans your kids used as a drawing table with markers, the shirt with the stain you only hope no one notices) take a picture of it and tell us why you are keeping it and how it got that way." Well, just in time for Easter, here is my item: 
Yes, this is indeed a rabbit fur coat. Now, back in the '80s, this was THE THING to have. I begged and begged for this coat. I finally convinced my parents to purchase it for me during my Senior year of high school. I was SO PROUD! Here I am, wearing it for a photo in my Senior yearbook. Can you see my glee?
I've had it all these years - 21 to be exact, and just can't bear to get rid of it. Not too many years after I had been sporting it to every event imaginable, I found out the horribly cruel process involved in raising and slaughtering the many rabbits it takes to make just one coat. I was mortified, and I've never worn real fur since. I'm not sure why I still have it - but I can't seem to get rid of it and promote the donning of fur as acceptable. I'm not a tree-hugger or anything, but knowing what I know now - I just can't in good faith wear it again. And yes, it still fits.
So it sits in the back of my closest, a cruel testimony to what a young girl is willing to put the Easter Bunny through - just to have the "it" item of the year.
16 comments:
if anything i wore 21 years ao fit... I'd keep it too. even if I didn't wear it.
I don't remember the bunny fur craze at all... I remember leather jackets and jean jackets that my kids wanted to badly.
I didn't post this fun monday because I don't have anything in my closet that is any more awful than the next thing.... really...
It's all pretty pathetic.
Even in today's world, there are people wearing fur. I teach at a middle school and there are number of girls and an occasional boy, who wear fur jackets and sweaters with fur. In elementary school, I had a mink collar that could be worn with sweaters and in high school a coat with a raccoon collar. Maybe you are keeping the jacket as some kind of reminder. The good news is that we do evolve and change.
Last week's Fun Monday I posted a 70's coat which is lovely but has a fur collar so like you I just can't bring myself to wear it because it just doen't feel right.
OMG!!!!
I can't believe you still got this!!
Mind you . . you look soooo cute in it!! Mmmmmm!! (Sorry, end of naughty thoughts!)
I found a Vintage faux Sassoon in a thrift store. Almost the same cut. I had to have it. Don't get rid of that coat.
I'm not sure I would get rid of that coat either!
pamela - I tossed the jean jacket, but never got a leather one. Guess the parentals figured one type of dead animal skin on their kid was enough.
mjd - I still can't let the kiddo (who is in middel school, too) give in to the fur craze! Of course, she's tenderhearted like her mother - so that helped.
beccy - glad I'm not the only one out there!
Erik - Thanks! Maybe I should have modeled it in "present day" to prove I could still wear it...scary - huh?
mist1 - faux is fine - wish I could transform it!
amy w - I am hoping the moths eat it - but it hasn't happened yet. I just wonder if I'll ever feel right about wearing it again...it DOES feel nice, though.
I will confess to having a 'mink gill' coat especially made for me with a beautiful lining with my name embroidered. It cost me a fortune and then with the realisation about animal cruelty I didn't wear it and eventually gave it to a romanian charity who were looking for warm clothes.
Well - don't get rid of it because when you are 80 that coat will be a heirloom, believe it or not.
and you know - I don't think owning a leather jacket is probably any worse than a rabbit fur one.
I always wanted one of those. Still think they are pretty cool even though many think they are politically incorrect.
that is pretty, i remember when they were "the thing" to have.
they did a little bit on desperate housewives last night about the thing you can't throw away in your closet...
i'm not sure if i have one :)
It still fits? Wow, good for you!
You had some good years out of it now give back to those rabbits that sacrificed their lives for you...donate your coat to PETA or something. My mom did that and the coat was then used to help educate against fur! it made her feel better and it might help your guilt too! This is the site: http://www.furisdead.com/donate.asp
chrisb - I don't think I've ever heard of a "mink gill" coat. I can imagine that it was beautiful, tho!
karmyn r - An heirloom? Wow...I had no idea. Now I'm really thinking it should be kept.
swampy - Yeah - it is really soft - and it was very warm. I just feel a little guilty.
piglet - I have several things I can't throw away, like my letter jacket from high school or my letter sweater from college - but none as embarrassing as this coat! I gave all my really bad stuff to charity.
kila - It does! I need to have our family photos remade, now that I've lost a bunch of weight. Sigh.
anon - Interesting site! Though PETA may not accept anything from me, given my previous post about the catapulting squirrels....
I wanted this coat, too, maybe even the exact one pictured. Never got it, I think I would've had to pay for it myself and I never had the money. It makes sense to me why you kept it...it represented a lot of things in your young life :).
Good Job! :)
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