As we wrote last month, fur was huge on the runways of New York Fashion Week, but apparently the trend is more significant than we realized. The New York Times is reporting that 2010 marks the first year that a majority of the designers presenting collections used fur.

The question of “why?” is complex to answer. Programs like Origin Assured have resonated with consumers, reassuring them that their fur was humanely farmed.

And on the design side, a lot has changed. Some holdouts have always used fur (like Oscar de la Renta), but some PETA converts of the ’90s have since changed their minds (like Ralph Lauren) and young designers are increasingly accepting of the product (like Irina Shabayeva of Project Runway fame, whose F/W 2010 coat is pictured here).

The NYT reports:

Several of those designers are too young to remember the vicious battles over fur in the 1980s and ’90s, when a PETA member tossed a dead raccoon onto the plate of Anna Wintour while she was dining at the Four Seasons; another tossed a tofu cream pie in Mr. de la Renta’s face. But some remain sheepish on the subject. Thakoon Panichgul, for example, showed a coat in his fall collection with strips of fox bursting from the sleeves, but he declined to be interviewed for this article because of the controversy.

Others said they felt confident using fur after examining the chain of production and finding it humane.

“You see so much leather and shearling being used this season, and no one is complaining about that,” [designer Alexa] Adams said. “I don’t see the difference between using shearling and using fur.”

We know you have opinions. Share them in the comments section below.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has for years been behind a retailer boycott of Australian wool, charging that the practice of mulesing is inhumane. (Which, as we’ve written before, is far from a settled matter.)

But now, the activist group is taking it a step further and alleging that all wool is unethical and should not be bought:

In its latest campaign, “Have a heart: don’t buy wool”, PETA claims “sheep and other animals used for their wool are turned into living yarn factories and are denied everything that is natural and important to them”.

The online campaign encourages buyers to instead seek out cotton, polyester or synthetic fabrics.

This is seemingly at odds with other campaigns that champion the sustainable benefits of wool (like the one spearheaded by Prince Charles). Moreover, polyester and certain other synthetic fabrics have a whole host of ethical problems associated with their manufacturing and biodegradability.

So where do you stand, E.S. readers? Do you wear wool? How about polyester?

As promised yesterday, we’ve spent a lot of time looking at the New York Fashion Week coverage and came to an obvious conclusion: Fur is big again for Fall/Winter 2010.

Michael Kors in particular used a ton of fur in his new collection (pictured here), for both men and women.

And a protégé from Kors’s own Project Runway, Season 6 winner Irina Shabayeva’s debut collection made fox fur the centerpiece of several designs. “From her opening look, a camel cashmere pheasant-print coat with crystal fox collar, the tone was set,” reports the Fur Industry Council of America in Women’s Wear Daily.

With so much fur conspicuously used by the most buzzworthy designers, it begs the question: Has PETA’s influence dimmed over the years due to its increasingly outrageous stunts? Is the era of fur-shunning over for good?

“After 10 seasons covering New York Fashion Week, I’ve learned that no matter how often People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protest outside the tents at Bryant Park, every year designers will still incorporate fur into their collections. This week, Marc Jacobs, Thakoon, Carolina Herrera, and a handful of other designers used fur in abundance. It was like a barnyard with goat, mink, fox, beaver, raccoon, and even muskrat seen on the catwalk.”

– Boston Globe columnist Christopher Muther’s observations of New York Fashion Week, which concludes tomorrow. More commentary regarding fur on the runway to come tomorrow.

Pictured above: from Marc Jacobs’s F/W 2010 show on February 15.

American figure skater Johnny Weir has reported that he won’t back down to demands that he lose his costume trimmed with fox fur for his Olympics routine, even though he’s been the subject of death threats in recent weeks.

In his trademark flamboyant style, Weir invited extremists to bring it on:

“All these crazy fur people definitely changed my mind. Security wise, staying in a hotel would be very difficult,” Weir told reporters after turning up for an 0800 news conference sporting a striking red and white silk scarf looped around his neck and with his nails manicured. “There have been threats against me. Threats of harming me personally and I didn’t want to get hurt. So I decided to stay in the village and my team has made it as comfortable as possible. …

“There was a lot of attention put on a tiny piece of fur,” said the 25-year-old, the 2008 world bronze medallist. “While I do understand anti-fur activists views about fur and the fur industry, they aren’t part of my life.

“One thing that is horrible is when somebody pushes a belief on you like a religion. I was definitely threatened and felt very threatened. People are nuts.

“I’m an easy person to pick on because I’m very open I like fur and I like things that come from dead animals. It’s easy put your cause against an athlete going to the Olympic Games, it’s good free publicity for these activists.

“I’m not a huge politician that gets these threats all the time. I mean I’m a figure skater. It’s not normal to receive a threat that really threatens your life. It’s a very scary thing.”

Mr. Weir’s opinions may be considered outlandish to some, but we have to agree with him that threatening violence — especially given the Olympics’ history of lethal security breaches — is not the right way to confront him on this issue.

And this is actually the second fur controversy regarding the Vancouver Olympics. Read up on the first one here.

Hey guys — looking to keep warm this winter? You might have to dig deep to avoid looking as fashionable as “a microwavable kebab.” Hilarious men’s fashion writer Alexis Petridis bemoans the state of faux fur for men in the U.K. Guardian:

Once, they were the height of louche sophistication, the kind of thing the Rolling Stones wore while looking elegantly wasted. Perhaps the rock star’s penchant for fur coats hastened their fall from grace: by the late 70s, they had become associated with a rock aristocracy so irritating that people felt impelled to form Sham 69 and spit at each other in protest. The moral argument has an impact, too. You want fake fur to look like the real thing, but too much and you risk Chrissie Hynde chaining herself to you whenever you step outside.

So, there aren’t many about: I ended up with a too-small women’s one, which made me look as louche and sophisticated as a microwavable kebab.

Mr. Petridis can take heart that plenty of vintage fur exists on eBay from the very era he’s trying to channel. No word yet whether Mick Jagger is ready to part with his old coats, though.

An Oregon man who set himself on fire in protest of a Portland fur boutique has died, police are saying.

Witnesses described the scene as pretty gruesome:

[A witness] said that after setting himself ablaze, the man tried to enter Nicholas Ungar Furs  at 1137 S.W. Yamhill St. He said the man also had something in his hands, but could not see what it was.

Cheema said a police officer was at the stoplight at Southwest 12th Street and Yamhill Street when the incident occurred and immediately responded.

By the time firefighters arrived, two police officers and bystanders had already put out the flames, Simmons said.

A short time later, charred materials remained on the ground around the building, including a shoe, but most were unidentifiable. Yellow police tape surrounded the scene.

The fur store has been the site of frequent animal-rights protests in the past and Cheema said the man was yelling something about the world ending and animals dying.

“People always come every day protesting,” Cheema said. “They’ve done some extreme things.”

Our condolences to his family, but this kind of violent protest has got to stop. No matter what you believe about the ethics of fur or other animal products, destroying a human life does not further the cause.

Prince Charles is reportedly planning new initiatives to bring wool back into fashion by promoting it as a green alternative to other textiles.

According to Luxist.com:

The Prince hopes his efforts will help make wool more popular once again for both clothing and carpet and rugs. Wool has a bad reputation as being bulky and itchy but the new push for wool plans to highlight the green benefits and beauty of wool compared to synthetic materials. Modern wool fabrics are also sleeker and softer and are being used in more innovative ways by top designers showing up in traditional Savile Row suits but also in wool bags from Marni and trendier pieces from Burberry and Paul Smith.

The Prince has his own organic flock of sheep and is aware of how lowering wool prices have affected farmers. British wool competes with wool from Australia, New Zealand and China among other countries.

In addition to the new label, Prince Charles is planning to help plan Wool Week, which will precede London Fashion Week this fall. Wool Week will be sponsored by British chain Marks & Spencer.

The European Union has enacted a ban on Canadian seal fur, reigniting the controversy over the ethics of seal hunting. On the one side, the seal hunt is a tradition practiced by Canada’s native population, who rely on the sales of the pelts to support their communities. But it’s also been roundly and publicly condemned by PETA and the Humane Society of the United States.

China’s fur market is booming and has no such restrictions on Canadian pelts. To find out whether Chinese consumers are interesting in buying imported seal pelts, Canada’s The Globe and Mail recently surveyed savvy fur-buying shoppers in Shanghai.

A few sample responses, first from a pro-fur perspective:

Every time I wear my real fur jacket, people ask if it’s real. A lot of people I hang out with are foreigners, and so I’ll tell them it’s fake because I don’t want to offend them. But if a Chinese person asks me, I would definitely tell them it’s real. In our culture, it’s not a big deal – we think wearing fur is really nice.

I don’t especially care what kind of animal the clothing is made of – for me, it depends on the style, design and price.

And from the other side:

I have three fur coats and one fur scarf, all made of rabbit. They’re beautiful and trendy. I doubt I will buy [seal fur], I think it might be too expensive. Hunting animals for clothing is a concern for me. I think seals should be protected.

“According to some religions, violence in support of your passionate beliefs is right. According to others it is wrong. But from my point of view one of the biggest problems with using these kind of tactics is that you legitimise the use of them by your opponents. … Violence (against property or people) breeds violence. Once you step outside the legal framework you lose all protection for yourself.”

– Guardian columnist Bibi van der Zee on animal-rights activists who engage in property destruction and other acts of violence against human beings to protest violence against animals.

Thoughts?