From Fendi’s celebration of 100 years of stoles to Prada’s enveloping collars and Simone Rocha’s fuzzy bloomers, fur remains a traditional signifier of richness. In an age before social media, WASPs might not have spoken a salacious story in more than a whisper, but their opulent furs spoke volumes louder than their cotton capris. Much has changed: stories muttered at Upper East Side salons have boiled down to snarky Subreddits and screenshots shared on Instagram Close Friends, and these days, financial security and a decent coat might feel like the biggest fantasy of them all.
While fuzzy textures, shearlings, and faux fur flooded the runways for the Fall/Winter 2025 season, perhaps designers merely wanted to give us something to hold on to. As the pendulum has swung from quiet luxury to maximalist opulence, designers have again decided to call on fur — and, more commonly in the modern day, its faux fabrications — to evoke both new-school affluence and retro glamor.
According to TagWalk, a popular data-driven fashion search engine, there was only a 10% increase in furry looks between the FW23 and FW24 seasons; however, between FW24 and FW25, the amount drastically jumped to a 33% increase overall. Among all the runways, Rabanne had the most significant season-over-season shift, with faux fur pieces increasing by a whopping 1,259%. At the time of writing, Marni’s eclectic fantasy had the biggest composition percentage, with 56% of the looks featuring faux fur.
The sustainability and ethicality of faux fur versus real fur remains a hot-button issue. It wasn’t too long ago that PETA runway crashers were the talk of the circuit and brought mainstream light back to the ongoing debate. Protestors representing the animal rights organization stormed the runways of a major designer in all four cities: Coach in New York, Burberry in London, Gucci in Milan, and Hermès in Paris (where Bryan Boy snatched the protestor’s sign in a now-viral moment). It’s crucial to mention that across luxury houses, most brands, including Burberry, Prada, and Saint Laurent, have not used real fur since at least the FW22 season. The overall resistance to fur lies within the ethics behind its makeup: real fur production has a dark history of animal cruelty and overconsumption. In contrast, faux fur has been criticized for its unsustainable fabrics.
From a moral standpoint, it’s a lose-lose situation, so why bring back the aesthetic with such force or even at all?
Last winter, Target’s hooded $48 USD synthetic fur coat went viral – yet the consumer rebuttal? Plastic materials like polyester are used by brands like Prada just as much as Target. For example, Prada’s Aspen faux fur coat retails for around $4,000 USD. Though polyester is often utilized expertly for sculptural fashion from brands like COMME des GARÇONS or Issey Miyake, many fans are immediately turned off by the material’s appearance on a composition tag, as it’s often seen as a shortcut to decreased quality and increased profits, a cheap replacement to natural fiber materials like wool, cotton, or linen. Ambria Mische, SVP of Global Sourcing & Merchandising at New York-based luxury vintage store What Goes Around Comes Around, echoes this sentiment when it comes to staying warm in a statement piece of outerwear: “Synthetic fibers just don’t do the trick.”
“As a skeptic, I feel like brands are using more faux fur because they can charge a ton for it.” -Mandy Lee
Polyester fur will often become associated with the fashion industry’s issue of greenwashing sustainability practices as well. Though some brands might use recycled plastics, the materials are still non-biodegradable. Fashion commentator and creator Mandy Lee (aka @OldLoserInBrooklyn) thinks the fur dilemma has become a moral crux on all sides.
“As a skeptic, I feel like brands are using more faux fur because they can charge a ton for it,” she says. “And it’s all about, ‘How can we make money right now?’ But I really think that the widespread trend overall is a shift in values surrounding the whole sustainability movement.”
The sudden, ubiquitous presence of (faux) fur on the runways can also be interpreted as an anti-conformity backlash following a brutally quiet-luxury-obsessed year. On the runways, brands like Burberry and Gucci used shearlings and faux fur as recognizable yet ultra-luxe modern accents to immortalize their contemporary designs. Under Riccardo Tisci and now Daniel Lee, Burberry has transformed from the heritage house behind your grandmother’s raincoat to a more variable, youth-forward brand (albeit to mixed results–sales may be declining and Lee’s departure rumors may be swirling yet many critics felt FW25 was his best season to date). Its autumn collection epitomized this evolution, pairing contrasting shearling jackets with traditional jodhpurs that seemed more fit for SoHo House rather than a Gentlemen’s Club. Miu Miu delicately draped faux fur stoles inside the crooks of disheveled models’ arms, and Prada’s necklines were overwhelmed with exaggerated faux fur collars and deconstructed patchwork blazers. Both represented a more mature iteration of the “teenagers stealing their parents’ clothing” feel from previous seasons. All grown up (or at least trying to be), these pieces had great consumer success. According to TagWalk, Prada’s blazer (look 32) was FW25’s most viewed look out of any designer. “We’re seeing this push for more bold dressing,” notes Lee. “Everyone got sick of the basic silhouettes.”
Meanwhile, Gucci revealed refined suiting, sharply tailored jackets, and oversized faux fur coats paired over pastel, low-cut lace tops, crossing generations of design eras in a single archive-inspired silhouette. Fendi celebrated a century of the house’s history by modernizing old-school power suiting. For the jet-setting Italian, an ensemble wouldn’t be complete without a “mink” imitation coat, furry Peekaboo, or floor-length faux fur stole.
For the more alternative, London-based designer Simone Rocha brought youthful schoolyard uniforms into the present, trimming collars, jackets, and bloomers with brown faux fur that matched the models’ rabbit stuffed animals. Bally, designed by recently departed Simone Ballotti (don’t worry, he’s going to Jil Sander), was bursting at the seams with brightly colored fuzzy Victorian collars, hemlines, and trains that accented 80s rock metallic makeup. Chloé opted for the new-wave French bohemian look, featuring tear-drop faux fur stoles, and a wide variety of trimmed jackets that felt straight out of an Always Famous remake. Even French-based sustainable designer Marine Serre opted for a refined glamour look, nodding to feelings of aristocracy through luxurious trench coats and fuzzy stoles scattered amidst the David Lynch-inspired collection.
“With more designers like Chanel, Gucci, YSL, and Prada going fur-free, there’s bound to be a luxury fur shortage down the line.” –
But how do you interpret such a clear trend as a consumer? Since the uber-viral “Mob Wives” trend — which saw Gen-Z trying to dress like Carmella Soprano — at the start of 2024 helped popularize fur off the runway, vintage fur has become a loophole for the phenomenon: the look and the authenticity with, supposedly, less of the moral conundrum that accompanies them. “With more designers like Chanel, Gucci, YSL, and Prada going fur-free, there’s bound to be a luxury fur shortage down the line,” notes Mische. “Louis Vuitton still makes fur pieces with the classic monogram – and they go for between $10,000 USD and $25,000 USD. Those who are in the game will be able to command higher prices. Currently, Louis Vuitton has a full range of real fur pieces listed online, including a made-to-order Embellished Mink Trucker Jacket, which retails for $43,000 USD. As fur becomes more prevalent on and off the runway and consumers grapple with how to participate in the luxurious aesthetic, the trend has quickly come full circle, like a snake eating its tail.
However, fur no longer needs to be so literal either. Diesel continued to offer us ingenious look-alikes through textile manipulation. Glenn Martens’ shredded-faux-fur-denim, whether it be a patchwork jacket or low-cut slinky dress, provided one of the most intriguing alternatives of the season and a fresh perspective on what a classical woman might look like as a digital it-kid today. Matthieu Blazy, formerly of Bottega Veneta, similarly emulated the furry texture with his signature leather transformations. Though Blazy has yet to make his debut for Chanel, it’s not unreasonable to think he’ll continue his practical innovations there. Elsewhere, Dilara Findikoglu and Junya Watanabe used synthetic wigs reminiscent of Margiela’s iconic SS09 ensemble to take hair to a punk-rock extreme.
Ultimately, what was most apparent about FW25’s furs was the new push from designers defiantly kicking against the doors of cobwebbed mansions owned by CZ Guests, Slim Keiths, and, yes, even Carmella Sopranos. Brands like Prada, Fendi, and Miu Miu showcased a multitude of faux fur accessories to accentuate this season’s less discreet persona, and with great success. A faux mink muff, fuzzy mitten, or a stole paired with the perfect pair of driving gloves and a string of pearls— these characters became power dressers wading against the tides of time.
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