Karachi’s fur market: As dead as the animal it came from

Furriers at Zainab Market hold on to business by the skin of their teeth.

KARACHI:

“It costs Rs25,000,” says Kashif, pointing to a full-length chinchilla fur coat.

A chinchilla fur coat is a highly coveted item for fur fans abroad, even if wearing it earns them censure. Madonna was heavily criticised by animal rights groups for wearing a £35,000 one in 2006.

At Nabi Furriers, Kashif shows it off nonchalantly. His merchandise would make an animal rights’ activist’s blood boil - with rabbit fur jackets ranging from Rs1,500 to a silver fox fur coat priced at Rs40,000.

But gloom permeates the mood at the furriers of Karachi’s Zainab Market, where an arrow points to the first floor along with the painted words ‘Fur Jackets’. Shopkeepers sit around idly, craning their necks for a customer — any customer — to make their way up the steps to their crammed stores.

No one is biting though

“There was an initial rush of foreigners after the break-up of the Soviet Union but that passed in a few years. Now there is no one here,” said Imran.

Fur coats and jackets are mostly sold at Haji Camp, and at stores such as Imran and Kashif’s in Zainab Market. Furs made from cats, blue foxes and Afghan foxes hang next to sheepskin-lined jackets and pricey minks, and most shops offer a selection of fur stoles and caps.

The furs are not new either, having travelled from markets for second-hand clothes in Russia to Pakistan. “Only eight per cent of furs sold here are new,” rails Imran, a shopkeeper.

Kashif says the second-hand furs are imported under a licence. The cast-off coats and jackets are drycleaned and then sold. “We can customise the coats by opening and restitching them. But getting a new fur coat is very expensive — it costs hundreds of thousands of rupees — and we do not have the sales to justify it.” Nabi Furriers has diversified though, and also stocks leather jackets. Other shops, despite the lackadaisical sales, are sticking to fur.

Even though the merchandise is used, it is in the latest styles. Given that the cost is far lower compared to global retail prices, one would expect a larger stream of customers.

Extensive campaigns by animal rights groups against the use of fur and fur farming, as well as bans in several countries on the trade, made wearing fur a cause for social ostracism. Celebrities such as Madonna and Jennifer Lopez have been castigated for wearing fur, as have designers who use it in their collections, and the allure (and shame of wearing fur) has been referenced by the US television series “Friends” and the first Sex and the City film.

Despite this, the New York Times reported last year that lobbying efforts by furriers in the US had resulted in more use of fur in designers’ fall collections.

Shopkeepers say that customers are few and far in between, mostly expat Pakistanis, seamen going on tour or consulate employees.

“There has been a ban on exporting fur since the 1970s,” complained Imran. “They have completely cut off business for us. After all, who will wear fur in this weather? No one even wears fur in Murree! The Sindh Wildlife Department requires us to get a license to stock fur from Pakistan too.”

According to the Sindh Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1972, “No person shall be in possession of any wild animal dead or alive, trophy or meat of a protected animal or the horns of Goral, Ibex Sind Wild Goat, Markhor or Urial, or Skin of Beech or Stone Martan, Jungle Cats and Desert Cats unless he be in possession of a Certificate of Lawful Possession granted in respect thereof by the officer authorised in this behalf.”

“This line of work is over,” Imran declared, sitting among the skins of cats, rabbits and foxes. “Allah hi kaam chala raha hai”.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2011.

A slideshow of pictures from Karachi's fur market can be seen here.