A luxury leather documentary

@Fadi Fur is a really strange one that I get asked about on occasion.

The difference between leather and fur, is typically leather comes from skins taken from animals slaughtered for the meat industry. In essence it is a byproduct where the animal died primarily for food that as humans we need for survival.

Of course we don't need meat to survive, but the process is more emotionally palatable when something dies for sustenance sake.

Fur is typically the skin along with the fur taken from animals who have been slaughtered for their fur only, and the carcass of the animal is then discarded.

In essence the animal died for a luxury or fashion item.

Now here's where the lines get blurred.

As we know, some countries are big consumers of rabbit meat, China being one of them, France being another.

What you don't see in the documentary is the rabbit carcasses being dumped into a landfill, you can bet that those are going to be used for food over there.

In my mind, rabbit fur falls under the category of a food industry byproduct, probably more than crocodile, alligator, snakeskin, ostrich and toad - rabbit meat is definitely more popular in restaurants the world over than any of those.

However, mink, fox, raccoon, chinchilla, etc, are not knowingly a food byproduct, and this is what sparks the controversy.

But what if you found out that the carcasses of these fur animals were feeding poor people in China? Or going into pet food?

I have no idea if this is true, and I'm asking myself as much as anyone else.

When the lines get blurred, the argument of cruelty and the conditions the animals are kept in usually arises. But then, have you ever visited a commercial chicken or pig farm?

I believe we all have to make a decision on what we are comfortable using based on the second hand knowledge we are given.

Probably none of us have visited a fur processing plant, so we have to make a judgement call.

Notice they didn't show how they killed those rabbits in the documentary. Why?

It was right behind the guys pulling the skins off. You likely didn't see it because it wasn't horrifying enough for the program.

Likely they were dispatched with a bolt or shock.

But the last thing the producers want is for the viewer to think, 'oh, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting'.

As humans we are designed to compartmentalise everything, and we want to paint everything as black or white, where the truth of the matter is, it's all some shade of grey.

Luckily, fur doesn't tickle my pickle, so it's not a decision I have to make in my work. Would I wear a Canada goose jacket however? for sure.

This is a very disturbing and heartbreaking documentary.

I was asked the whole "ethicaly sourced" question last year by a journalist, and I honetly told her "it is suppoedly ethically done, but there is no way to know for sure", all the while knowing that even if I am told they my supplier "ethically sources" his hides, there is no way it was true. Because, ethincally sourced means expensively sourced, means way higher prices than the competion, means less sales, means business going out of business. Like in every industry.

Does this mean that I will stop working with leather? Definetly not. I will not be trying to ever use Fir after this documentary, that is for sure. I will never buy from a supplier that seems shady, that is also for sure, but that has always been the case.

What I am trying to say is that I will do my part as much as possible for being an "ethical" artisan, but I also will not toss and turn at night wondering whether I actually really am one.

The world is full of controversial realities that we may not like... this is one of them and even if the intentions of the documentary are evident, they don’t change the fact that the big brands generally grow and get their profits at expenses of hundreds of people (and animals in this case) treated like bulls*it.

I love this craft and I always will, and I don’t mean to offend anyone, but we all know how this world works....