In Manhattan: Mink Is No Four-Letter Word

• Share

(2 of 3)

Producing the right coat depends on the amazing psychological cunning of the showroom staff. Customers, stacked like planes over La Guardia, are greeted with cheerful tact. Is it to be "a first piece"? Is it to be "your mink"?—the bread and butter of the business, the keystone, the turning point. Old customers ask for "something interesting." Let's see, you have the fox, the minks, the skunk ski jacket. What about raisin-dyed ribbed beaver (marked down to $3,500 from $4,950)? Or next year's newest fur, Bukhara karakul with a quilted lining?

Endangered species like leopard are out. Even something like lynx, once cheap and a "fun fur," is pushing sable in price because the Canadians have cut their trapping season. Muskrat is too expensive. Nutria is good value. Eighty percent of American skins are now being bought by Europeans. "We can't invent new furs," says Forrest, "so we invent new ways to work with fur"—claret-patterned beaver, parquet mink, puffed sleeves.

"I love it, I love it, thank you," says a blond from Connecticut, who has reached the magic age of "Hmmm, fur, that might be nice." She is transformed. Her husband, dressed for a city Saturday in gray sweater, L.L. Bean boots and a touch of tweed, says: "I've been trying to give her mink for 25 years." A friend is delighted to pick up one of the opossum-lined rain coats marked down $300 and going like hot cakes for $595.

The call of the wild echoes on 7th Avenue. Two trim, tailored, tiny princesses (habitat: Queens) choose two trim, tailored, tiny minks. A roly-poly family with a roly-poly puppy chooses a roly-poly gray squirrel sweater.

Whispers and consultations fill every corner. A blond acquires a fox by applied sulking. A woman of a certain age insists on buying the wrong coat, a white mink, despite advice from a Southern redhead in mauve fur who warns, "White mink simply doesn't make a fashion statement any more."

A chic Young Wife decides against a third purchase: "Better not push my luck. I'd rather have a week in Mexico." A flawlessly dressed Hungarian woman stares at a bright sapphire mink, marked down to $5,950 from $8,950. "That's the kind of thing that makes Communism work," she snorts. It also happens to be the kind of thing that makes capitalism work. "America lives in a two-tier economy," ex plains Forrest. "This year, jewelers are buying, real estate men, people in the tax shelter business. Not many of your average working girls buying—for themselves."

The top tier has as many permutations as the mink. Two men have come in with cash. "We work in a bar, get it? We are paid in cash, we pay in cash—no records. No income taxes. So don't use our names." A sable, priced at $50,000, sells for $110,000 at Neiman-Marcus in Dallas. "In Texas," says Forrest, "the higher the price, the quicker it goes."