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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

A Few Furry Facts

By Krista Knight

This is an assortment of haphazardly compiled information, news and facts, all related to fur in one way or another.

* Fur Care Terms: Drumming is a process to clean furs using abrasion. It is required that you tumble the fur with sawdust soaked in a special solution. The sawdust absorbs dirt and oil and the abrasive action fluffs the fur. Fur should be cleaned professionally once a year, if you use it and it needs cleaning.

- Flat Furs are furs that have only one type of hair or fur like Seal and Persian Lamb, for example.

- In an attempt to reduce weight and bulk of the fur, the technique of shearing is employed, all the while making new designs and patterns in the pile of fur. You can use shearing to create a new light weight, smoother garment from an older long-haired coat.

- Grooving is a kind of shearing technique that produces a stripe pattern. The width and depth of the stripes or grooves are nothing alike, and a corduroy like texture will be the final result. Another term for grooving is cording.

- Natural lamb fur is called shearling. The leather half is typically sueded and worn on the exterior with the fur side turned inward for warmth. The suede leather may be dyed and advanced tanning methods mean that a Shearling coat or jacket is much lighter-weight than it once was.

- Knitted Fur is made of fur yarn. The technique for manufacturing this knittable yarn is to combine thin cut-outs of fur with cotton yarn or silk. A plethora of things can be created from crocheting or weaving fur yarn. There are a number of knitted products which are actually machine washable.

* Facts about Fur that is sheared will in fact keep you as warm as fur that has not been sheared. Fur typically consists of two main layers; the underfur or Ground hair -bottom layer-, closest to the skin, made of shorter and denser wool hairs and the Guard hair -top layer made of longer straighter hairs-. Shearing just cuts some of the Guard hair, however the insulating Ground hair accounts for the fur's warm thickness. Guard Hair gives the various furs their different characteristics and contains most of a furs pigmentation. Awn hair is the name for the middle layer contained on some furs.

- Long hair furs are not warmer than short hair furs. As explained above, what determines the warmth of a fur is the Ground hair.

- Female mink furs are typically lighter in weight, softer, silkier, shinier and more pliable than male mink furs. Fur from female minks is utilized more frequently in designs with features of draping and softer shapes. A skin from a male mink can be used for a different item with a less supple style. Nonetheless, mink goods that are made from males are not unavoidably cheaper than mink goods made from females.

- The best fur pieces are made totally without leather. The more leather is used to hold together the strips of fur, the less valuable a fur garment is.

* Recent Market Trends in the Fur Industry - The Fur industry no longer experiences the damages of the 1980s through the early 1990s, due to different factors in the economy and a weakened anti-fur campaign. The fur industry is making a comeback - and quickly.

- Three main factors have contributed to the renewed growth of the industry: an unprecedented increase in demand for fur products by the growing middle class, or nouveaux riches. In China and Russia the downward slop of the Russian fur industry which used to produce about 15% of the USSR's yearly income and the western fashion industry's new findings of fur garments.

- The Russian manufactured fur industry today produces 7 times fewer furs than in the 1980's. With no state support, Russia is now at the bottom of the list of international fur-manufacturers, trailing behind North American and European manufacturers. In the late 1980s, Russian produced thirty-five percent (35%) of the world's fur, and their production now has dropped to no more than three to four percent. Russia is responsible for manufacturing 30% of furs world wide. This is partly due to the drop in domestic production, but high domestic demand for quality furs.

- China has also become a large imported of furs, buying wild pelts from North America and manufacturing them into garments to ship back to North America and, in the most part, to Russia. Large-scale production in fur farms in China, which receive state support, adversely impact the Russian fur industry. When the Soviet Union collapsed many of the fur farms in Russia went down with it. The Russian fur manufacturers are not able to compete with the western players as they are not finding avenues to reduce their expenses.

- The ailing Russian fur trade may suffer further as a result of recent events in Georgia. Due to Russia's intervention in Georgia, the economy suffered billions of dollars being withheld for commerce. The areas entangled in this incident are some of the largest buyers of fur in the world.

- Dubai, Shanghai and Moscow are the top market centers for luxury fur garments today.

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