In November, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) sued a number of fashion retailers — including Dillard’s, Lord & Taylor, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Saks, and the parent company of Andrew Marc — for selling faux fur garments that, after analysis of the fibers, were revealed to in fact contain real fur. HSUS’s exposé of these labeling mistakes have horrified would-be vegetarians who believed they were buying animal-free clothing.

One of the offending mislabeled garments by designer Andrew Marc. (Courtesy of Andrew Marc)

On some level, it doesn’t even make sense. Isn’t real fur expensive to produce? So why would designers try to pass the real stuff off as fake — with a low price tag to match?

The fault lies somewhere. But we don’t think it’s with these retailers, who may have easily been unaware that what they were marketing as faux was truly real. The source of the mistake, we believe, is in China’s lax regulation of the fur industry.

As it turns out, it is more expensive to manufacture high-quality faux than it is to procure low-quality genuine fur — frequently from animals like the asiatic raccoon (a wild species that the HSUS calls a “raccoon dog”). But the lack of regulation in China’s fur industry means it has virtually no oversight.

This is not true for fur producers in the rest of the world. As discussed recently, the international fur trade has developed a program called Origin Assured to certify that fur was produced in a humane way from farms that have European Union-approved methods of caring for and slaughtering their animals. Every inch of OA-certified fur has been inspected by a third party, so there’s no chance that unscrupulous farms can market their pelts under the OA emblem.

The same cannot be said for fur processors in China. Chinese fur farms operate independently of any international regulatory body, and there are no standards to provide for the care of the animals or how the fur may be marketed, which one could argue inevitably leads to the type of fiasco that the HSUS is now suing over. 

Not only that, but the industry in northern China is growing rapidly, according to a recent story on the Reuters news wire. And the absence of animal-welfare protections is luring more and more international fur traders, processors, and fashion designers to shift their businesses to China.

Even consumers who are in the market for real fur will be forgiven for suspecting garments with a “Made in China” tag. Fur from the aforementioned asiatic raccoon is often mislabeled as coyote, rabbit, or other animals. Real fur from those species tends to be higher quality and more expensive, so dishonest fur processors have an incentive in changing the label to increase the asking price.

The fact remains that buying clothing from China is still a game of chance. If you’re insisting on faux for ethical reasons, you’re better off doing your research before buying something that may be exactly what you don’t want. And if you’re looking for the genuine article, beware: If you purchase fur-trimmed clothing from China, you have absolutely no idea what you’re going to get.