In Manhattan: Mink Is No Four-Letter Word

By Jane O'Reilly

"I'm not sure I love it," a woman says I in the petulant monotone of the Total Shopper, her eyes two emerald-rimmed pinpoints inside a huge cloud of cherry fox. She is definitely post-mink. Her personality calls for skunk, or perhaps tree sloth (to match her elaborate false fingernails), but she settles on a coat with pelts worked in next year's pattern, a sort of scallop effect resembling a Queen Anne fac,ade. In case she ever sets foot outdoors, she buys a coyote ski jacket. She seems sorry not to have spent more than $8,000. Her husband, waiting at one of the glass-topped tables along the edge of the room, appears only incidentally interested, knocking the ash off his cigar as he signs the order.

A fur coat cannot be driven or deducted. It is not an investment object, such as a rare book or print. It cannot be insured at true replacement value. It is likely to be stolen if the owner lets it out of her sight. Checkrooms refuse responsibility. Passers-by mutter about cruelty to animals and starving Cambodians.

Why, then, is Michael Forrest, New York furrier, doing $745,000 worth of business during his annual, invitation only, sale to private customers? The reasons offered by the crowd of fiercely concentrating women pirouetting before the mirrors at the end of the showroom sound unconvincing: "It will cost more next year." "I can wear it to the grocery store." "It's young-looking." Also, "sporty" and "basic." (Down coats, by contrast, were rejected because they "make me look like my daughter.")

The objective reporter is there simply to record a scene Toulouse-Lautrec would have loved: all the basic human themes in full display--vanity, lust, decadence, hope, pride, grace, rare flashes of transcendence. Feeling fat, frayed and fortyish, the reporter is placed inside a full-length Black Willow mink coat. She becomes tall, thin, "interesting" (instead of "past her prime") and, best of all, totally invulnerable. The cost is $6,950, marked down from $10,000 by Forrest, retailing for $20,000 and up. Suddenly, $6,950 doesn't seem unreasonable--considering that life is short, etc. Considering too that fur prices have doubled in the past ten years, pushed up by increasing European demand and a 20% increase in sales in the U.S. last year alone. Even so, last year's inventory must be sold to make room for next year's styles. Gone are the classy days of choosing pelts over tea, fitting a canvas pattern. "We need to have coats in stock now," says Forrest. "It's impulse buying."

The impulse may be part of the furless human condition. Actual buying depends on money (full payment before the coat leaves the premises), trust (as in "If Mike says it's good, it is good"), a certain amount of pro forma chat about male vs. female skins and "this year's shoulders." But when the right coat is produced the transformation of the female customer is immediate and complete. A woman who does not achieve incandescence is wearing the wrong coat--or is just spoiled.

Producing the right coat depends on the amazing psychological cunning of the showroom staff. Customers, stacked like planes over La Guardia, are greeted with cheerful tact. Is it to be "a first piece"? Is it to be "your mink"?--the bread and butter of the business, the keystone, the turning point. Old customers ask for "something interesting." Let's see, you have the fox, the minks, the skunk ski jacket. What about raisin-dyed ribbed beaver (marked down to $3,500 from $4,950)? Or next year's newest fur, Bukhara karakul with a quilted lining?

Endangered species like leopard are out. Even something like lynx, once cheap and a "fun fur," is pushing sable in price because the Canadians have cut their trapping season. Muskrat is too expensive. Nutria is good value. Eighty percent of American skins are now being bought by Europeans. "We can't invent new furs," says Forrest, "so we invent new ways to work with fur"--claret-patterned beaver, parquet mink, puffed sleeves.

"I love it, I love it, thank you," says a blond from Connecticut, who has reached the magic age of "Hmmm, fur, that might be nice." She is transformed. Her husband, dressed for a city Saturday in gray sweater, L.L. Bean boots and a touch of tweed, says: "I've been trying to give her mink for 25 years." A friend is delighted to pick up one of the opossum-lined rain coats marked down $300 and going like hot cakes for $595.

The call of the wild echoes on 7th Avenue. Two trim, tailored, tiny princesses (habitat: Queens) choose two trim, tailored, tiny minks. A roly-poly family with a roly-poly puppy chooses a roly-poly gray squirrel sweater.

Whispers and consultations fill every corner. A blond acquires a fox by applied sulking. A woman of a certain age insists on buying the wrong coat, a white mink, despite advice from a Southern redhead in mauve fur who warns, "White mink simply doesn't make a fashion statement any more."

A chic Young Wife decides against a third purchase: "Better not push my luck. I'd rather have a week in Mexico." A flawlessly dressed Hungarian woman stares at a bright sapphire mink, marked down to $5,950 from $8,950. "That's the kind of thing that makes Communism work," she snorts. It also happens to be the kind of thing that makes capitalism work. "America lives in a two-tier economy," ex plains Forrest. "This year, jewelers are buying, real estate men, people in the tax shelter business. Not many of your average working girls buying--for themselves."

The top tier has as many permutations as the mink. Two men have come in with cash. "We work in a bar, get it? We are paid in cash, we pay in cash--no records. No income taxes. So don't use our names." A sable, priced at $50,000, sells for $110,000 at Neiman-Marcus in Dallas. "In Texas," says Forrest, "the higher the price, the quicker it goes."

A whey-faced man is grumbling about his wife's two new coats. Last week, the staff says, he was happier while he bought his girlfriend a mink. A man in construction buys three coats for his wife and daughter. "Why not?" he says. "I've got faith in the economy, and [with emphasis] this time of year I'm nice to a lot of people."

A Black Willow mink goes to a working wife. "You can wear it anywhere," she says, masking glee with efficiency. Actually, you can't. Only a natural-born mink would, for example, wear it home on the subway.

--Jane O'Reilly

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