The woman’s long fur coat marks this as a very prosperous couple, even more so than the man’s expertly matched plaid suit. Fur has long been a status symbol for American women, and especially older women according to fashion historian Patricia Millbank. “They seek to offset the creeping appearance of crow’s-feet and gray hairs by wearing more expensive clothes, bigger jewels, and flattering furs.” (New York Fashion, 202) According to a furrier who started work in the 1950s, his standard customer was fifty years old and had received the coat as a gift from her husband. (Lisa Belkin, “For Thriving Furriers, Protests Pose Threats,” NYT, 12/17, 1985.) Mink was the fur of choice. Those who couldn’t afford a full length coat like this bought fur stoles or coats with fur collars.
I think the pussy bow on its own would have helped me place this photo in the 1970s, but luckily there was a date printed on the back. She looks confident in her coat, but anti-fur activists were already at work in the mid 1970s, trying to change fur’s reputation from luxury to “inhumane frivolity,” in the words of one Sierra Club member.” (Blair Sobol, “Wrapping their Ills in Furs,” LAT, 11/14/74) A decade later, she might have been worried about wearing her coat out on the street.
