Guendalina PerelliAlessandro Turci’s reflection on the return of fur to the Fall/Winter 2025-26 runways
It is truly astonishing how Fashion—or rather, the fashion business—manages to contradict itself, overturning choices we thought were the right ones for a healthier consideration of Nature, including humans.
No to fur, environmental protection, inclusivity, body consciousness, or harmful thinness standards. All forgotten. Persian fur (Swakara or Karakul) is even making a symbolic comeback, including its prized version with such silky fur because it comes from lambs extracted via cesarean section before birth. Minks and foxes are raised in cages and killed with electric shocks (electrodes—one in the mouth, one in the anus).
The desire to win the battle against the beast and take its coat is an ancestral perversion that unfortunately persists even with faux fur (pure petroleum in the form of hair), which does not increase responsibility toward Nature but instead creates a plausible diversion.
Ultra-thin, almost gaunt bodies are back, and the “curvy” forms that, just a few seasons ago, were celebrated as a victory for more attainable femininity have disappeared. In short, the post-Covid era (if we want to use this term to define a period of reconsideration of what truly matters) is witnessing a deterioration in lifestyle and in the values that should support a fair and harmonious balance between Nature and Culture.
It hardly matters that very young women are now digging up their grandmother’s vintage fur (or pieces from second-hand markets) without the slightest awareness of what they are wearing, playing at being well-off bourgeois ladies yet always dissatisfied. The mentality is worsening in favour of unethical and unsustainable consumption. It seems that even in the comments of experts and fashion critics, there are no observations on this matter, as if all the respect we had hoped was on the rise is instead being sacrificed to the dictates of the market.
If it sells, then what is beautiful is also good. Clothes and bodies—human or animal, no distinction—have the same fate: to be merchandise. So let’s not ask Fashion for a dignity it can no longer guarantee. From school education to the runways, the only goal is to create business, focusing attention on whatever drives spending and consumption.
And creativity? The kind that once counterbalanced power, generating rebellious and free pockets of resistance? The kind that was not afraid to introduce new languages? Now, it is enslaved to double-digit revenue growth, to market analyses that do not distinguish between different logics but lump everything together for the sake of convenience.
Lastly, a necessary reflection on climate change and global warming. It hasn’t snowed in our cities for years, cold seasons last only a few weeks, so what’s the point of all these excessive coverings? Historically, sudden natural upheavals like eruptions and earthquakes have caused significant transformations in both Nature and Culture. What is happening today is also meaningful from this perspective.
Power denies the climate crisis: Trump, for example, dismantled NOAA, the federal agency responsible for monitoring seas and oceans, leaving us with a highly precarious and uncertain future, without the necessary oversight.
This creates chaos, a confused and weakened environment that demands order. A Fashion industry that is inattentive and disconnected from political and environmental events, one that prefers to deceive with nostalgic and highly unethical imagery, is destined to yield to the voice of the strongest.
Alessandro Turci speaking
Alessandro Turci
Fashion designer and art director for international brands, his interests range from design to contemporary art, publishing and curation. Tenured Academy professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Frosinone, previously at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan. Founder and president of the association for contemporary art Risekult (www.risekult.com) and director of Risekult magazine, an art book of research for collectors and art lovers. Contributing editor for Flair magazine, L’Officiel magazine, Thesignspeaking.