Ulf Steinbock has been working in his profession for 45 years – “and I’ve been justifying myself for it for 45 years,” he says. Capricorn is a master furrier, he works with furs. “Only a few brave people still wear a mink,” he says. At least in northern Germany, his workshop is in Sasel. “And here hardly anyone dares to wear fur on the street anymore.”
It is true that there are also some fur shops in Hamburg and a few fellow furriers who work with farmed furs. But the general mood, according to Steinbock, has been against cultured fur for years. In southern Germany and Austria, on the other hand, there are even more fur wearers. In any case, Steinbock’s work is changing, also under external pressure. While the 60-year-old used to make coats from the skins of breeding animals, he is now making grandma’s old mink socially acceptable again, namely as a sofa blanket.
In Germany, since 2017, fur animals may only be kept or bred with the permission of the responsible authorities and under certain conditions. In the same year, the last mink farm in Schleswig-Holstein closed. A ban is also repeatedly discussed in public. In 2015, today’s Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, as Schleswig-Holstein’s Environment Minister, submitted an application to the Bundesrat to ban fur farming, and in 2020 he called for an EU-wide ban due to a mutation of the coronavirus in mink in Denmark.
And in the year 2022, which just ended, the European citizens’ initiative “Fur Free Europe” (“Fur Free Europe”) collected enough signatures for the European Commission to deal with a possible ban on fur farms and products made from farmed animal fur on the European market.
Against this background, the industry must change in order not to perish. Furriers have long advertised the reworking of furs that no longer fit or whose cut has gone out of fashion. The German furriers’ guilds not only defend the controlled breeding of mink on their website, but also provide extensive information about the reuse of existing furs.
But Ulf Steinbock goes one step further. “Today I work with a different conviction,” says the son of a furrier, who began an apprenticeship at the age of 15.
Capricorn rarely works with skins from farms anymore. But if a mink or a Persian from back then already exists anyway, then please don’t just keep it in the closet in the attic. Capricorn therefore separates the pelts and reassembles them. And so Grandma’s coat, socially frowned upon and loved as an heirloom, becomes a blanket for the home – where nobody sees it and the new pieces are allowed to give the typical cozy warmth of real animal fur.
However, the reworking, to put it in contemporary terms: the upcycling, is carried out exclusively on order. Even though the phone is ringing almost every day and people want to get rid of their old furs, Steinbock doesn’t buy anything just to happily process it further. The risk is too high for him. Because the skin lasts about 50 years – but the leather tears sooner. Before Steinbock processes the material, he first checks it and estimates its service life.
When the master furrier talks about his work and the change, there is also a little frustration. Frustration at how little appreciation his craft receives and how much enthusiasm there is for synthetic fibers in the clothing industry. “This is one of the oldest professions in the world. For 2000 years people have been making clothes from furs, there is nothing closer to nature,” he says. “And when a piece is played, there are no plastic nanoparticles floating in the sea afterwards.”
Therefore, the skinner continues to produce new tailor-made pieces of fur, whether coats or waistcoats. However, he no longer uses skins from breeding animals as he used to. “We take what is left of the food chain. That seems more authentic to us and more appropriate for today,” says Steinbock, meaning “we” means his wife and himself. She is also a furrier, the two met during the master’s examination. Jonne Steinbock observes trends, contributes design ideas and develops practical items such as scarves with integrated pockets. And small remnants are turned into gloves and wrist warmers.
The second source for new productions are skins from the hunt. Since furriers do not tan themselves, the hunters bring the skins that have already been tanned to Ulf Steinbock. “A blanket made of red fox fur is a wonderful play of colors in nature,” he says. And even the muff seems to be experiencing a small renaissance, at least this winter there were a few requests for the mobile sauna for the hands. “We are considering giving the muff a modern design for the next season and offering it more intensively,” says Jonne Steinbock.
It is important to both of them to provide information about their profession and their type of production chain. Therefore, unlike most of their colleagues, they regularly visit handicraft exhibitions and markets. “We’re sometimes met with hostility there, too,” says Ulf Steinbock. “But we’re always willing to talk to people. We want to arouse enthusiasm for the material and our craft. After all, we are convinced of our concept.”
