Having an inherited fur recut

An inherited fur coat almost always poses the same problem: the material is fine, the cut no longer is. Wide shoulders, a dated length, a waist in the wrong place. A furrier can often rework the piece. But not any piece, and not to any extent. Here is how to assess an old fur before deciding what to do with it.

First step: judge the state of the pelt

Everything depends on the pelt. The hair may be dull and come back with cleaning. A dried-out skin, on the other hand, cannot be repaired: you work around it, or you replace it. Make these checks before anything else.

The fold test

Take a panel of the garment and fold it gently, lining outwards. A sound pelt folds easily and returns to shape. A damaged pelt resists, cracks audibly, or leaves a white crease that stays.

Looking through the lining

Open the lining a little at the bottom of the garment, or look through an existing tear. You then see the back of the pelts and the seams joining them. Look for yellowed, brittle areas, or micro-cracks along the seams. These are the first signs of a pelt at the end of its life.

The pull test

Pull very lightly on either side of a seam, in a discreet area. A sound pelt does not move. A tired pelt opens along the seam, because the skin no longer has enough substance to hold the thread.

Hair loss

Run your hand through the hair and look at what stays in your palm. A few hairs are normal. A handful signals a problem at the root, often linked to a degraded pelt.

If these four checks are good, the piece is a good candidate for alteration. If two or three are bad, heavy reworking risks costing more than it returns.

What a furrier can do

Working fur rests on assembling cut and re-sewn pelts. A workshop can therefore intervene fairly freely on the structure, as long as the material takes it.

• Shorten. The most common and the safest job. A long coat becomes a three-quarter, a three-quarter becomes a jacket. The material removed stays available for something else.
• Rework the width and the shoulders. The heavily built shoulders of past decades can be deflated, narrowed, realigned. That single change is often what makes a piece wearable today.
• Take in the waist. Reworking the waist and the sides to adjust the line.
• Alter or remove the collar. A large shawl collar can become a smaller one, or go altogether in favour of a round neckline.
• Shorten or rework the sleeves.
• Replace the lining. Almost always necessary on an old piece, and often the cheapest alteration for the result obtained.
• Change the fastening. Buttons, hooks, belt.
• Repair. Re-sew an open seam, replace a worn area of pelt with skin taken from elsewhere on the garment, under the armholes or at the bottom.

What a furrier cannot do

The limits are just as clear, and it is better to know them before making plans.

• Enlarge without material. You can remove, not create. Widening means adding pelts, so finding a fur that matches in species, shade, hair length and state of wear. That is rarely satisfactory on an old piece, whose colour has already shifted.
• Save a dried-out pelt. Tanning cannot be redone on a made-up garment. A brittle pelt is replaced, not rehydrated.
• Even out an uneven shade. Areas faded by light cannot be reworked invisibly.
• Make hair grow back. An area worn down to the underfur, at the elbows or under a shoulder strap, does not regenerate. It is hidden, moved, or replaced.
• Alter a piece whose pelt is too fine. Some light furs take badly to being cut and re-sewn several times.

The common alterations

From long coat to jacket

The most frequent request. It immediately updates the silhouette and makes the piece workable for daily wear. It also frees up a good quantity of material.

From coat to vest

Removing the sleeves turns a bulky coat into a piece you can layer. A vest is worn over a knit or a jacket, between seasons as in winter. It is often the best option when the sleeves are the most worn part of the garment, which is common.

Collars and accessories

A piece too damaged to remain a garment can yield a detachable collar, a stole, a hood, a panel to set into a wool coat. It is the last resort when the pelt is only sound in places.

The lining as a signature

Changing the lining is the moment to personalise the piece and have a name or a date embroidered into it. On a garment being passed on, that counts.

Before handing the piece over

• Have it cleaned first, altered second. A dusty fur is hard to judge.
• Ask for a quote after the piece has been examined, not from a photograph.
• Ask what happens to the material removed: it belongs to you and can be used later.
• Have them spell out what cannot be saved, and why.
• Take photographs before the work starts.

A decision to prepare for

A successful alteration starts from an honest diagnosis. A sound pelt allows a great deal; a tired one allows little, and it is better to know that before committing to the cost. Our page on the furrier's work sets out how a piece is assembled, which helps in understanding what is reversible and what is not. The notes on care and passing on explain how to avoid, on the altered piece, the damage that ruined the previous one. And if the cut you have in mind is a vest, see the vests to gauge the proportions.