“Speak to Fendi. Speak to Louis Vuitton. Speak to Dior,” he said. “They’re all using fur, they’re all selling fur.”
Like Moser, Oaten came to the sector from outside — a former Liberal Democrat MP, headhunted after leaving Westminster in 2010 to help modernize an industry he said he barely knew existed.
What he found surprised him. Not a cottage trade but a complex global supply chain, running from farms in Finland and Greece through processing workshops in Italy, auction houses in Helsinki, manufacturers in Hong Kong, and finally to boutiques in London, Paris and Rome.
That complexity is part of his answer to the decline narrative. Saga Furs, in Helsinki, is now the only major European auction house still operating. A single skin bought there might travel through four countries before it becomes a coat. The raw export figures cited by critics, Oaten argued, miss most of the value.
The industry, he said, is artisanal by nature: a family workshop outside Verona, fourth generation, producing bespoke garments that can sell for €200,000. Not a mass-production business, not designed to employ thousands — but high value, and, in his telling, experiencing something of a revival.
Post-Covid, Oaten said, younger buyers have been drawn to vintage fur through sustainability thinking: natural materials, longevity, the antithesis of fast fashion. Sales at Saga Furs recently hit their highest level in years. The celebrity promotions are deliberate, he acknowledged without apology.