Flaunting fur might be back, thanks in part to vintage buyers and

For Mina Ely, fur has never been out of style.

With her family’s Russian Jewish heritage, furs were the norm for both esthetic and practical reasons during cold Toronto winters.

“I would always remember when they would go out, or when they would go to shul, it was just something they would wear, because you can’t drive on Shabbat,” she told Cost of Living. “I always looked at my mom like, ‘wow’ … I loved the way it looked. It just symbolized so much elegance.”

Today Ely runs her own luxury fur brand based in Toronto, Arpino, designing coats for celebrities, hockey wives and other wealthy clients. She says business has been up in the last year.

“I always believe that fashion’s a cycle … so it went out for a little bit and then it came back. And then once you started seeing celebrities endorsing it and wearing it, that opened a little of a door of like, ‘hey, this is OK.'”

Ely and others who work in the fur trade and the wider fashion industry say there’s been a recent uptick in interest in wearing real fur — both new and vintage. That’s following decades of contraction in fur sales, largely fuelled by successful campaigns from organizations like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which drew attention to the plight of the animals killed to make fur garments.  

Part of the renewed interest, fur industry people say, is linked to growing concern for sustainable fashion, both reusing existing materials — in the case of vintage fur — or in choosing natural materials over plastic-based alternatives that won’t break down in a landfill.

But animal rights organizations dispute claims that furs are more sustainable and more popular, saying it’s just the last gasp of a dying industry.

Canadian furs selling out

Mark Downey, CEO of the Fur Harvesters Auction in North Bay, Ont. — the only wild fur auction house in North America — said he first noticed a spike in interest in the summer of 2023.

That’s when buyers from countries that require visas to travel to Canada started getting in touch to gather the necessary paperwork to attend the auction that would be held the following spring.

“So you got like [people from] Turkey, China, any of these places that want to attend our auction have to call here and ask for what’s called a letter of invitation,” Downey said. “The amount of letters of invitation we were getting requested for, starting in August of 2023, was like every week they were coming in. It was just crazy.”