The "Lap of Luxury" of a fur skirt.

[LordTheNightKnight]

This thread is about skirts made of fur, or at least half covered with fur.

 

This is one of my favorite types of fur garments. It might be because it's so atypical, but I LOVE the concept.

 

Now most examples I've seen have been hip-length to knee-length pencil skirt. Some look good, but my preference is for when they flare out, like a bell-shaped skirt or an A-line.

 

I'm starting with so far my absolute favorite. But first I'll bring up this article about trends in fur skirts.

 

Surely, no one is wandering around saying, “Oh, my hips are cold. If only I were sitting in mink.”

 

Now we could write about how wrong he is, but I'll just sum it up that Balmain might have thought something similar when he made a white ermine blouse as a gag item, and thought people would just get a chuckle out of something so extravagant.

 

Last year I made a shirtwaist of ermine. I designed it as a gag. But 17 women, including the Duchess of Windsor and Marlene Dietrich bought it.

 

So Balmain ate his words and for a while made a new ermine item a year, including:

 

A full-length white ermine skirt. Side view. Front view.

 

I know some of you will likely prefer the skirts I'll list down this post, or ones you will post in replies, but I just adore this outfit. Life Magazine even described it as a literal "lap of luxury". I WANT someone to draw Queen Elsa from Frozen wearing this (hair up or hair down... and of course she doesn't need the gloves).

 

Anyway, here are several others, sorted by fur type.

 

Fox

 

Ziegfeld Follies (1946). One number in the movie ends with a lady putting on a white coat with a bell skirt of white fox.

 

From the film of Gypsy, the eponymous lady is wearing a dress with white fox trim and a full length slit white fox skirt. Here she's leaning a little to show the skirt lining and her slim legs.

 

Wedding dress with optional jacket, muff,and overskirt, all of red fox. From a Russian designer, but I don't know who.

 

Miniskirt of silver fox.

 

Mini skirt of blue fox.

 

Ermine

 

That Lady in Ermine (1948). At the end Betty Grable wears a coat over her crinoline dress, that effectively makes it a dress-shaped coat, so I'm counting it. It's made of white ermine and trimmed with white fox.

 

Sonja Henie in an old cigarette ad, and she's wearing a skating dress with a full length slit skirt heavily trimmed with ermine.

 

Marquise de Maintenon, second wife of Louis XIV of France. She's wearing a dress trimmed with ermine, and the bottom half of her skirt is covered with it. Such fur skirts were not that uncommon in the harshest of winters.

 

Maria Feodorovna of Russia (wife of the second to last Czar and mother of Nicholas II) wearing a dress heavily trimmed with ermine, especially on the overskirt and underskirt.

 

Louisa Ulrika, Dowager Queen of Sweden, wearing a court dress with the skirt covered with three thick bands of ermine.

 

Mink

 

Ginger Rogers in the film adaptation of Lady in the Dark, wearing a gem encrusted dress with a full length slit mink skirt. The main reason it's not one of my favorite outfits is you can see the way the picture is shot, and (if you see the film) the context of the film the dress first appears, that the fur is just one feature of the dress; it's not meant to be the highlight.

 

Lauren Bacall in the 1950s film Designing Woman, wearing a knee length mink dress. The film is in color, but doesn't seem to be on blu-ray yet (unfortunately applies to a lot of the films I'm posting here).

 

Someone even made a custom Barbie doll with a full length mink skirt. Front. Back.

 

Designer coat with the top being cream mink and the skirt of it being brown mink.

 

Rabbit Fur

 

Kirsten Dunst modeling a white rabbit dress by Alexander McQueen. Unfortunately seeing the dress in full shows a really bad cut. It looks like a mini dress grafted on the top of a classical style dress, and having the top that high makes me think of people who hike their pants up too high.

 

Another item made by McQueen at the same time, this one gray rabbit. It's just a skirt though, and actually goes up to the waist, not to mention make a wonderful pillow as the picture shows.

 

Sable

 

Russian designer Ulyana Sergeenko wearing her own creation: a black coat with a full length brown sable skirt.

 

Faux

 

This lady describes the joys of wearing her white fur miniskirt, like a blanket keeping her constantly warm and cosy.

 

This lady made a custom pink fur miniskirt.

 

Brown fur miniskirt by Yves Saint Laurent.

 

This designer talks about a brown fur midi-skirt she made.

 

This lady made a custom outfit with a full length brown fur skirt. Page 1. Page 2.

 

Other

 

Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII might be as polarizing a figure as the game itself (no need to talk about those here), but I love her outfit, especially the brown fur skirt that wraps just halfway around her waist.

 

http://www.furinsider.com/trend-alert-ready-to-wear-fur-fashion/]This article from Fur Insider shows a number of fur skirts, including a brown fur bikini with a full length light brown fur skirt and a black jacket paired with a full length black fur skirt.

 

If feathers are okay here (if not I will edit this out as soon as I can), this is from a 1950 cotillion. Debutante Marilyn Love is wearing a dress with a full length white feather skirt.

Edited May 10, 2015 by Guest

[Fox]

Your link for the "full length brown sable skirt" linked to a picture that you linked to with the previous link. (I don't think I said "link" in there enough times. )

[LordTheNightKnight]

Your link for the "full length brown sable skirt" linked to a picture that you linked to with the previous link. (I don't think I said "link" in there enough times. )

It's corrected. Thanks for the heads up.

[Fox]

Thank you. That was the one I was most curious to see.

[Typro]

Great article! I enjoyed reading that.

thanks!

[AKcoyote]

While I agree that fur skirts are very attractive there is an impractical side to such garments. The wearer should NOT sit while wearing the fur skirt as friction with the seat will break hairs of the fur.

[Marcel]

and there could be some serious static electrical build up.ouch!

[LordTheNightKnight]

While I agree that fur skirts are very attractive there is an impractical side to such garments. The wearer should NOT sit while wearing the fur skirt as friction with the seat will break hairs of the fur.

I've also read about that, and the solution is to have something to have over the seat to reduce the fiction. Of course if you can't carry a silk shawl around, you could have a train over the skirt to have the same effect. See this dress from 1694 with an ermine petticoat.

 

Or if the skirt will let you, flare out the skirt when you sit, so that it drapes over the seat instead of being on it.

[ozfurlova]

Having had a a full fur skirt suit ensemble made for myself, I can definitely echo the earlier sentiments of not wanting to sit in it. I did choose to go with a below-calf length pencil skirt style which perhaps make the task of sitting just a little more difficult than had it been a flared skirt but I have to admit that the impulse and desire to have such a thing made was more from the fun of making it happen and wearing it than from any practicality sense

[LordTheNightKnight]

Having had a a full fur skirt suit ensemble made for myself, I can definitely echo the earlier sentiments of not wanting to sit in it. I did choose to go with a below-calf length pencil skirt style which perhaps make the task of sitting just a little more difficult than had it been a flared skirt but I have to admit that the impulse and desire to have such a thing made was more from the fun of making it happen and wearing it than from any practicality sense

Well see if you can bring something to lay down over a chair that will reduce the friction.