It was fur in the beginning
Beautifully Canadian, made right next door, and always available when retailers need it

If there was no Fur Council of Canada (FCC), someone would have to invent it. Fortunately there is such an organization, representing 70,000 Canadians who work in the nation's first - and still highly dynamic - industry, and its efforts at marketing nature's most luxurious fabric and the exquisite garments and accessories made from it have proven successful both at home and abroad.

When the international fashion community wholeheartedly adopted fur as its luxury fabric of choice and started producing coats and jackets unlike any seen before, the FCC stepped in and created Fur Works. Under the guidance of Richard H (Hochman) of Paris, it taught Canada's artisans to turn out shorter, lighter, sportier coats and jackets than they were accustomed to making.

Then it took on the marketing, and both initiatives have proved successful beyond all expectations. This season, in addition to its North American billboard campaign in major cities the FCC bought six pages in Harper's Bazaar and not only showed the creations of Canada's leading designermanufacturers, but included the names and addresses of retailers in the U.S. and Canada who offer the highly fashionable garments.

At a time when garment shipments from China have occasionally been in doubt, shipments from north of the border never have been.

Canada currently produces about two million farmed mink pelts and works with another million skins from a variety of plentiful indigenous animals trapped in the wild, and about 80% of this harvest is sold south of the border.

For further information contact: Teresa Platt, Executive Director, Fur Commission USA, PMB 506, 826 Orange Avenue, Coronado, CA 92118-2698 USA, (619) 575-0139, (619) 575-5578/fax, furfarmers@aol.com, www.furcommission.com.

To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit Fur Commission USA's Fur on Film at http://www.furcommission.com/video/index.htm

© 1998-2008 Fur Commission USA

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