How to wear: fake fur | Jess Cartner-Morley

The new way to wear fake fur is to channel your inner teddy bear and try on a Borg jacket

Forget about looking like a fox. Or a mink or a chinchilla, come to that. The new way to wear fake fur is to channel your inner teddy bear and embrace the surprise fashion hit of this winter, the Borg jacket. Borg means that your furry coat is nubbly rather than fluffy, with the porridgy texture of an old-fashioned cuddly toy rather than the silky, feline pile of most fake fur. A kind of faux-sheepskin, it was major in the 1980s but fell out of style and was, until recently, relegated to lining parkas (it is densely woven, and therefore very warm).

It is no accident that the Borg jacket has come into vogue in the year when real fur has finally begun to slide into the history books. London fashion week went fur-free last year, a sign it is going the way of dinosaur hide. As the real thing becomes less than aspirational, so fake fur has become less literal. A Borg jacket is a fake fur, but old Hollywood glamour this ain’t. And the only animal it resembles is the kind that was born stuffed.

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