Lucille Gervaise, seen here in a slightly modified photo from a
1921 newspaper article, was both a Montreal socialite and a fox breeder and is here seen showing off a silver fox she bred that was supposedly worth $1,000, more than a house. She had been showing it off at a local fox show, which back then didn't mean The Simpsons.
Foxes were big money, as the Montreal fox show champions of 1920, a couple called Jack and Frances Canuck, was
sold for $2,500.
The wearing of animal furs, complete with head, was a surprisingly enduring style and Montreal was deemed the continent's fur capital, and in 1945 one auction saw 45,000 fox furs among the 2,000,000 furs sold.
The style managed to keep in vogue until the
mid 1950s at least.
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Fur ranchers in Laval des
Rapides seen in 1926. |
Organizers of the fox breeding trade had committees and councils and called themselves conservationists. A century ago the silver fox trade was centred in Prince Edward Island.
2 comments:
Johan-Beetz, of whom the Lower North Shore town is named because he saved it from an epidemic, raised silver foxes there for many years and turned himself into a very rich man.
Lotsa people say wearing fur at all is immoral whilst eating meat.
When eating said meat, they sure wouldn't want the face of poor dead beast gazing at them.
Or their shoes staring up at them, for that matter.
So they either had a lotta balls back then, or were supremely ignorant, spoilt and stoopid.
I say they should have left foxes alone. Could have instead sat down to a lovely dinner of Ortolan, Mitterand's reputed Last Meal. There will always be idiots.
http://www.gastroenophile.com/2011/01/ortolan-forbidden-fruit-by-bruce.html
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