furs
 

I like fur trim or accessories, mink included, though I own only one or two--small enough that they don't have the "I'M RICH DAMMIT!" Ivana Trump problem.

Sheared mink dyed those candy colors just pisses me off--since it could just as well be acrylic, that's just taking an animal's life too lightly.

furs
 

I agree. It feels heavenly. When I was little, my friend's parents had a mink blanket on their bed. (it was very old, so I don't think as expensive as such a thing would be now) Whenever anyone came over to her house, they would want to sneak into her parents' room to touch the blanket. mmmm, soft.

Mindset list for class of 2007
 

That's right. A&F was the real outfitter. I get these teeny-bopper stores confused...

Hemingway rolled over in his grave when it turned into the lame shit store that it is now...

Vegan poll
 

Much like the sequestered jury house on BB4, i think my ignore list just got interesting. Poor Cheval was on there by himself for awhile, just picking his assclencher and adjusting his asscot. But, must like Dana whenJustin arrived, he may finally get some pussy. Would that make him less uptight?

Like Julie Chen, I will give you weekly updates on the action going on in my ignore list. maybe cheval and pj will spawn little baby posters who will need to be ignored. I can just see the little boy in his cute little french outfit with the too tight tie and sailor shirt. the little girl would look like something off of 42street with her vintage fur. so cute! and maybe she could borrow some of Erin's eyeshadow to really bring out the hooker look. so stylish!

Mindset list for class of 2007
 

Wasn't that the J.Peterman catalogue with the drawings and the over-the-top descriptions? (No, Seinfeld did NOT make up the character of Mr. Peterman; I imagine they had to get some kind of release to use his name though...).

The Gap owns Banana Republic (not sure if that was always the case -- maybe that's what you meant by being Gapped -- in which case, [cue Emily Latella voice] nevermind.)

furs
 

While I do not own a black leather jacket, this is the stupidest thing you've said since you argued about how everyone knew you were mainly right.

Leather jackets come in many different styles and not all of them look like they belong on some guido who can't get in to Cheetah.

It's tricky, but you be 'illin if you didn't agree that the right combo of black leather jacket, rope chain, Kangol, Lee on the leg and my Addidas on the feet (high top or low) still look cool. Throw in some gazelles and walk this way:

http://thadweb.com/rundmc/pictures/r...-inch-toys.jpg

TM

Vegan poll
 

Fuck, she's not going to become an obsessed stalker, too, is she?

furs
 

Perhaps someone should produce the Thurgreed Eye for the Preppy White Guy?

furs
 

Concur - the fake stuff is getting better, but usually it still doesn't pass even a cursory visual inspection.

And, more importantly, it isn't nearly as warm. Having only turned to fur in recent years as a direct result of my outrage at PETA*, I have to admit that those people offering what I thought was the lame excuse "the synthetic and high-tech insulating coats just aren't as warm" were actually telling God's own truth.

Anyhow, I've never understood fake fur. You get all of the negatives of fur (bulk, nasty looks from people who think you're evil or pretentious) and none of the positives (warmth, softness, the satisfaction of knowing you are preserving the environment by wearing a natural clothing product rather than a chemically-polluting earth destroying manufactured synthetic). What is the point? To the extent one might want some volume next to the face or on the cuffs, there are gazillions of better ways to do it (I lament that coq feathers haven't made more of a comeback, but one could have all sorts of imaginative shearing, quilting, fringe, embroidery, whatever if one wants to avoid animal skins).

BR(more of a sheared beaver fan myself, if you want to talk soft)C

*Note, I always in the large silent majority that believed there is nothing wrong with wearing fur per se, but until PETA pissed me off so much it wasn't worth my trouble to challenge the vocal minority. Since my personal campaign against the rude intrusiveness of telemarketers worked out so well, I have great hopes for the future of this endeavor.

furs
 

I don't think my black leather jacket is guido at all. It's warm as hell (although it can't touch my Mountain Hardware coat)...

furs
 

This is too easy.

furs
 

I will have to agree, though, with the people who object to fur coats in this neck of the woods. There's simply no need, as it doesn't get that cold. The first brisk day of the year, everyone runs to their closet to pull out the furs, and we end up looking ridiculous. I saw a beautiful mink this summer while visiting New Mexico, but there was no way I could justify the purchase given that there are maybe three or four days a year that I could legitimately wear it.

furs
 

I was wondering who'd take the bait first.

Nah, it's just a symptom of my boring repetitiveness.

furs
 

It's soft, but is it downy? I want to touch something downy.

TM

furs
 

The women in the OM's family all have gorgeous full length fur coats. When I was shivering in my cloth coat at Christmas, they were all incredibly comfortable. I don't think I would buy a new fur, but I certainly appreciated why one would wear one in a place that gets cold.

I do have a vintage evening ensemble that belonged to my grandmother with the mink collar and cuffs. I have worn it (it's still fantastic) and people just assume it is fake.

furs
 

Excellent points, all.

I have a friend who is a high-end furrier. She inherited the family business, but will be closing it next year (she's looking to get rid of inventory, for anyone who is interested...).

Her clientele is, well, dying off (of old age -- no PETA-related deaths, as far as I know). People just don't want to drop that kind of scratch on a fur anymore. They'll settle for cheaper from a department store or wherever else you buy furs. She (as you might expect) has an amazing collection of fur coats, that don't look at all look cheesy or "bling bling". One is a sheared mink in emerald green that is stunning. You can't even really tell it's fur from a short distance -- but it is unbelievably soft and so toasty!

I don't have a fur coat (not an animal issue, just an "I feel like an old lady wearing a fur coat" issue), but I do have a shearling coat, and two fur hats. There is no question that they are warmer than their synthetic counterparts.

(A hearty "good on you" to Thrasher's Fan -- I think it was -- who has her beliefs, but doesn't foist them on others. I quickly shook loose a former friend who, once she became a vegan, would take to lecturing me about what my diet should contain. She went on and on when I put butter on some French toast over brunch one fine Sunday -- and that was the last straw. Buh-bye!)

furs
 

Yeah, someone running into the supermarket in jeans and a mink in 70 degree weather is always good for a laugh.

However, there is warmer-weather appropriate stuff if you are determined. Short or hip-length jackets work pretty well in fall-like weather. Anything with a shorter nap can be cut quite sharply, and you would be surprised how a nice fitted shape makes a coat both more modern and lighter looking. (Never been a fan of the "polar bear" look that 90% of fur coats seem to have, except on raccoon coats because that is so amusingly '20s sheik.) Shorter gray persian lamb jackets somehow manage to look less "freezing weather"-ish, even though they also invariably look extremely Russian.

furs
 

Then you want baby seal. Pervert.

furs
 

How does PETA feel about goose down jackets? I can't imagine the geese end up happy after the process. Are we forever relegated to that fiberfill crap if we wish to stay PC?

Vegans, Leather and FLO$ Spoiler
 

Great, now I gotta go and look up "sentient." I simply have never had seafood I think this is because I don't like the smell -- now don't go telling me that "really good seafood doesn't smell" because it all does to me, from the can of tuna to lobster and all points in between it smells. The other thing is that seafood tends to look like what it is on the plate and that just "bothers" me.

I don't like milk and never have. As I grew older I got into the "we are the only species that drinks the milk of another" thing. Now, I just don't drink it. Cowsmilk should be drunk by baby cows.

Eggs. There is a stringy umbilical cord in there --- ewwww. I know people who have cracked open eggs to find little embryos or blood. Nope, just never interested in eggs. As a child I apparently would eat the white part but only if it was not cooked with the yolk, and it had to be burned with lots of pepper. Yes chickens will lay eggs anyway, but not in the quantity that they are forced to do so for commerical purposes. A normal laying hen lives at most one year. Free range is fine, I just to don't eat eggs.

To each his own. For the record, my husband is a strict carnivore -- potatoes and corn are the only vegetables I can get him to eat.

Vegans, Leather and FLO$ Spoiler
 

This may piss off Thurgreed, but I have to say I totally agree about the smell and taste of seafood, and am equally irritated by people who claim certain things don't have a fishy taste/smell. They all do. Maybe not a strong, rotting, gross fishy taste/smell, but it is recognizably fish, and that smell/taste is nasty ick ick ick.

furs
 

Yes. Much better to use an insulating petroleum derivative that'll pollute a landfill for the next 10 milennia and whose byproducts poison water, harm human health, and damage the earth. Where the hell is your moral sense?

furs
 

That fits. I was getting sick of saying, "Bark like a dog," anyway.

TM

Vegans, Leather and FLO$ Spoiler
 

Same here. The taste makes me gag. But I love cheese. In fact, it is my favorite food. I don't eat that much of it because it's addictive, like a sugar addiction. I want it more and more. Weird.

Vegans, Leather and FLO$ Spoiler
 

Umm, I think cats are perfectly happy to drink up bowls of cow's milk. Granted, they can't go out to the Piggly Wiggly and pick up a quart themselves (well, most of them can't), but I'd wager they sure as shit would if they could!

furs
 

See, I am very fortunate that I happen to look SUPER dressed up like an old lady. I can't wait for fall, because one of my favorite get-ups is a fitted tweed skirt suit, silk blouse, 2 1/2 inch heeled laced-up walking shoes, gloves, pearls and a nice brooch. I LOOVE the Miss Marple look.

Only catch is that I still am often too chicken to wear everyday hats, though my wedding/church hats have gotten extremely elaborate. Besides, hats are a total bitch to store in NYC, they take up some serious space if you keep them well. How, I ask you, are you to store a bonnet with 14 inch trailing pheasant feathers when you don't have enough space to cram in more socks? (No, seriously, how, I just ordered one.) Hint on hat buying wherever you are: go to the nearest African-American neighborhood and ask where to find "church hats" (you can even go on Sunday and ask a church lady wearing a hat you admire).

BR(Alternatively, I can e-mail you some good websites with hats of varying levels of outrageousness)C

furs
 

Another "talking [lecture] point" of my former friend the vegan -- no petroleum products. So, basically, all she would wear was cotton (no doubt, her clothing was manufactured in faraway places by children in forced-labor sweatshops, making $.07 a day). I forget what she did about shoes -- really, what could she do? Wear Keds? Espadrilles?

I don't think I'll call and ask her though. It will have to remain one of the countless gaps in my internal general-knowledge anthology.

Edited to correct ambiguity.

Vegans, Leather and FLO$ Spoiler
 

Mmmmmm....... cheeeeeese.


And that's all I have to say.

Vegans, Leather and FLO$ Spoiler
 

The Displaced Dog is a big fan of pretty much any dairy product. He does not seem to discriminate between cheeses made with cow, goat, sheep, and on one occassion, horse milk. Actually, his affinity for dairy was helpful when the horse milk cheese was served because I didn't care for it, and I could discretely hand it off to him.

Vegans, Leather and FLO$ Spoiler
 

Pets
Are
Wonderful!!!!!!!

Bilmore's ahead of the curve -- was it a precog?
 

Bilmore, when you picked your avatar, did you know that Opus was coming back to the funny papers? Or is this just another case of art imitating the FB?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2003Sep8.html

(After eight years away from newspapers, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed is creating a new comic strip called "Opus," starring his beloved penguin of the same name. )

furs
 

On the wall on a thick (padded, if you can get it) hook, if you don't have room for stands and it won't fit a hatbox. A collection of good ones looks almost sculptural that way if done correctly. You can swath it lightly with tulle or cheesecloth to keep off the dust if you won't wear it often though may not look as nice.

Stacked hatboxes make charming sidetables and solve the storage problem by usefully doubling as furniture.

furs
 

I hate to ask, but where did she live? Cotton has no insulating properties whatsoever, it's worse than linen (which she can probably wear, actually). There's a reason search & rescue guys refer to it as "killer cotton" every time they drag another dead hiker or hunter in jeans and a J Crew barn jacket out of the forest.

furs
 

Once people get heavily into "I won't wear/eat this because...." it's pretty impossible to find a rationale for the lines that they draw -- except, perhaps, that they are ignorant or in denial about the real effects of the supposedly good products they choose. Cotton, for example -- if you wear cotton, you are supporting the pesticide industry (and many pesticides are petrochemicals). Cotton, rice, and tobacco use more pesticides than any crops (I forget which is first, second, and third). Rice, of course, is grown in vastly greater quantities than any crop, since it's a daily staple for half the world, so it's obvious why rice makes the list. Cotton makes the list because it's pest-prone, grown on massive plantations that can be wiped out by a single incursion ("monocropping"), not a food crop so not subject to the same regulations as food crops, and often grown in parts of the world that don't regulate chemical use much.

It makes sense to me when people say "I'm going to choose x rather than y whenever possible" -- say free-range vs. factory raised. But not the absolute bright line "I will not use x because doing so means using petroleum" view.

Bilmore's ahead of the curve -- was it a precog?
 

This picture may be more avatar appropriate.

http://www.theonionavclub.com/avclub...ture_3728.html

furs
 

Hemp! Hemp! Hemp!

BR(Hemp!)C

furs
 

Philadelphia, at the time, but she has since moved to Boston (if you're on the board, missy -- maybe you know who you are!!!)

furs
 

For people who smoke enough dope that they don't give a shit what they look like. anttwat.

Vegans, Leather and FLO$ Spoiler
 

Any potential kayaking notwithstanding, you lead the most boring life ever. Don't travel. Don't eat. Six beers a night in front of the t.v. Sex with husband with no length or girth. Missionary 3 out of every 4 times. Good god, woman. Live a little.

TM