If you care about luxury and its understated value, then you might be interested to know about the Beluga of outerwear this Fall: astrakhan. It’s back on the runways and on the fashion mags, and rightly so: its texture is suede-like, it’s dark, regal, and quietly luxurious.
Prada displayed a $25,000 coat on its Fifth Avenue-New York store and more than half of Dolce & Gabbana's fall collection included astrakhan styled as dresses, coats, skirts, gaiters and newsboy caps.
But if you want to run out and revive your outerwear, you might want to find out how the astrakhan fur was obtained. Some animal activists informed the press about some practices which procure the fur from the fetal lamb, even before it’s born.
The Italian fashion houses such as Prada, Gucci, Dolce&Gabbana, Armani and Marni have taken the lead in showing astrakhan for Fall 2005, with J. Mendel (a premier American fur house with Russian/French roots) topping the catwalks with the best styled pieces for this season.
http://www.jmendel.com/
http://www.dolcegabbana.it/
http://www.gucci.com/
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