The Discerning Brute: fashion, food & etiquette for the ethically handsome man » fur

Paul McCartney: “Fur Is Worn By Ugly People”

joshuakatcher — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 13:13:43 +0000

Paul McCartney's official website is currently featuring a very strong message from the Knighted, internationally celebrated artist. One thing is clear, he is not mincing words when it comes to animals used for fashion. Like Paul, many intelligent, compassionate people no longer see fur as a symbol of wealth or status, but instead, see it as a symbol of ignorance and indifference to animal suffering:

“Fashion is an important industry. It can be creative and beautiful but it also has an ugly side. Those designers and retailers that use and sell real fur have the blood of the animals killed for that fur on their hands. It is the demand for fur, created by the fur industry, that causes so much animal cruelty and it’s all so unnecessary. No one needs to wear fur and no one would suffer or die if the commercial fur trade was to disappear. There are alternatives to fur and fashion designers can and should use their artistry to come up with designs that do not use this cruel product. I am so proud that my daughter Stella – who is a great designer – has shown the way and uses no fur in her collections. Remember, as Respect for Animals says: ‘fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people’!”

Please take a moment to check out my initiative, PINNACLE: Reinvent The Icon, which his daughter Stella has helped out on enormously.

Urban Outfitters Admits to Deceptive Mislabeling of Real Fur as Fake

joshuakatcher — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:53:51 +0000

Please check the PINNACLE: Reinvent The Icon blog for the full story!

Tail Between The Legs, Cont’d

joshuakatcher — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:14:15 +0000

Earlier this month I wrote about the increasing fox and raccoon-tail accessory frenzy. I received a lot of responses, many from stores or people attempting to defend the trend, claiming everything from:

"Most of our product actually comes from Native American tribes collecting the remains of animals who have died in nature."

Or other false (but convenient) excuses like "helping farmers". When those rationalizations didn't work, some simply wanted to throw in the towel, citing our powerlessness to change the fashion industry. Because this is such a huge trend at the moment, I wanted to explore what informed the people who are mostly participating in wearing these things. I sort of blame Mario for subconsciously influencing a generation of raccoon and fox-tail-wearing 20 to 30 somethings. I blame Peter Pan's Lost Boys. I blame the roadkill-eating freegans who want to symbolize their "going feral" by wearing the tail of their last meal without considering the consequences of the appetite this culture has for devouring any and every sub-culture's iconography and selling it to the mainstream as empty symbols of rebellion. I blame the racist appropriation of American Indian garments and crafts, and Davey Crockett, and Max from "Where the Wild Things Are". The symbol itself is obvious; if you wear a tail, you become wild, like an animal. It is no surprise then, when we look at what Generation X and Y considers nostalgic and representative of childhood freedom, how that relates to our human desire to be wild and to have contact with nature and animals. This desire is not wrong - but the execution is the furthest thing from communing with wilderness when one considers how most fur garments and accessories are produced, and the toll it takes on animals and ecosystems. Worst of all - there is really no excuse - it's not like they are functional; these tails are simply ornamental, yet there are those out there willing to defend it like it's clean drinking water in a desert.

The New Yorker’s Bruce McCall Gets Hairy

joshuakatcher — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 21:45:22 +0000

The Sept 20th 2010 New Yorker cover features an illustration by Bruce McCall of a Polar Bear, Raccoon, Bear and Tiger wearing fur garments. Bruce is known for illustrating the social ironies of modern life, and clearly this cover is a comment on fashion week, and the upcoming cold weather. I think the message is clear - it's kind of ridiculous when one animal (ahem...) wears the skin of another. Or you could interpret it as "only animals wear fur". The anti-fur sentiment in New York is finally reaching a turning point, and it's clear that once people find out how fur is made, they are speaking up about it. If fur is something that rubs you the wrong way, and you've got something to say, check out The Discrning Brute's very own anti-fur initiative for designers and artists: PINNACLE.

PINNACLE: Reinvent The Icon V.1

joshuakatcher — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:00:19 +0000

Happy Fashion Week! I am thrilled to officially announce the launch of PINNACLE. PINNACLE is a collaborative initiative for designers, artists, and other creatives who want to craft an accessory that symbolizes the growing anti-fur sentiment. Our first digital-tabloid is available online and can be downloaded and shared (a full-screen option will pop-up by hovering your cursor in the center):

The PINNACLE website, ReinventTheicon.com provides all the details about how to get involved and showcases contributions from designers, models, photographers, and artists. The gallery section is currently highlighting our maiden editorial story featuring wardrobe by Stella McCartney and John Bartlett and our spokesmodels, Karolina Babczynska and Adam Wallace (Ford Models), Photography by Gregory Vaughan, Styling by Joshua Katcher, Makeup by Brian Duprey, and Hair by Alejandra Nerizagal. Please pass this magazine along. As the weather grows colder, our fire grows fiercer. Joshua Katcher

Fur Real, Fill in the Blank

joshuakatcher — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:27:00 +0000

Just for fun, and the upcoming fur season (not so fun), I thought I'd do a fill-in-the-blank contest just to see who's clever. The author of the winning blurbs gets a digital copy of the photo below featuring their blurbs emailed to them for use around the inter-webs. Put on your thinking caps, and leave a comment below with your entry!

Under the Water, At the Farm, On Their Backs

joshuakatcher — Thu, 27 May 2010 21:24:27 +0000

• In the New York Area for Memorial Day without any plans? Consider going to Woodstock and watching Chrissie Hynde (of The Pretenders) & Welsh songwriter JP Jones while supporting the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. The show is on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, May 29th, and gates open at 5pm, show at 6pm. General admission tickets are $30 advance / $35 door (if tix are still available). In the event of rain the show will be moved to the largest barn. CLICK HERE for details.

• ABC News went underwater in the Gulf with Philippe Cousteau Jr., grandson of famous explorer Jacques Cousteau, and he described what he saw as "one of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen underwater." Meanwhile, BP continues to stonewall the American people about the growing Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf, even while the company is reaping millions of dollars in profits a day from its other federal leases. The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to bar BP from receiving U.S. government contracts. Suspension of BP contracts would mean the loss of billions of dollars and effectively stop the company from drilling in federally controlled oil fields both on and offshore. Prior to the current Gulf spill, EPA had linked BP to at least four instances of criminal misconduct, and BP has paid tens of millions in fines for environmental crimes. According to the public interest investigative journalists at Pro Publica, the EPA is considering re-evaluating BP and determining whether the company's actions leading up to and following the Deep Horizon spill are evidence of an institutional problem inside BP that would qualify for debarment action. Sign the Petition • Skin Trade, a documentary that I had the honor of being in, will premiere in Los Angeles, CA on June 10th. The evening is also going to be a benefit for ARME.

Get tickets: http://www.skintradethemovie.com/screenings.php

Oil Spilling & John Bartlett’s Awakening

joshuakatcher — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 06:04:57 +0000

• An interview with designer John Bartlett over at Tim Groen has me pretty inspired and excited! We all know how rare it is to meet other fashion people interested in compassionate lifestyle and cruelty-free design. Bartlett, who is ardently anti-fur and veg, has committed to eliminating all leather from future collections, saying "I decided that I’m not going to work in leather anymore at all." • 42,000 gallons of crude oil are spewing out into the Gulf of Mexico very 24 hours. Experts say it could take months to stop the leak that has already covered 600 square miles and threatens wildlife areas and coastlines, like the sensitive Louisiana coastal ecosystem and the Mississippi Delta, now mere miles from the slick. The explosion that caused the oil rig to collapse and killed 11 crew members remains a mystery. BP (Beyond Petroleum), Transocean (the rig's operational company) and government have not been able to stop the oil from spewing out of a broken pipe 5,000 feet below sea level. And lastly, the blowout-preventer - a device designed to stop a leak in scenarios like this, did not deploy and remains unable to be triggered. Burn the oil. Skim and collect the oil. There is no harmless solution and, in the fashion of an addict that never learns the lesson, the oil economy chugs on. We will all be reassured that "everything is being done" and "no one could have predicted this" and "it's an unfortunate but unavoidable risk". Who is doing the reassuring? Well, according to a NYT article yesterday, BP is and their profits more than doubled in the first quarter of last year, thanks to increased oil prices. How can we ever move on from oil? Will these disasters ever cease and, if not, what does that mean?