On West 29th Street in the Garment District, Nick Pologeorgis’ family has been making and remaking furs for 60 years. He works with major U.S. designers and employs 20 people, a few of them younger and devoted to its website but most of them older specialists in cutting, shaping and manufacturing furs. They make $35,000 to $120,000.
But he doesn’t know how much longer he or his workers will have jobs. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson has introduced legislation that would ban the sale of all new furs in the city—a move that Pologeoris believes will put him out of business.
As it happens, some 30 furriers have offices and seven others maintain street-level stores in the same building as Johnson’s district office, less than two blocks from Pologeorgis’ operation. The furriers say not once has the speaker asked them what the impact of his bill will be.
“New York City is the fashion capital of the world, with the largest department stores in the country,” Pologeorgis said. “If you can’t sell furs in New York, how can you sell them anywhere?”
The council will hold a hearing on Johnson’s bill May 15. Animal- rights activists already have pushed through fur-sale bans in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Fur farming has been prohibited in Australia, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom. The controversy has led many prominent designers including Burberry, Gucci, Donna Karan, Michael Kors and Diane von Furstenberg to go fur-free.
A spokesman for Johnson said the speaker “believes that killing an animal for the sole purpose of wearing a fur coat is cruel. The speaker’s bill reflects an ever-growing consensus in the fashion industry encouraging innovation and considering the use of fur as not ethical.”
Johnson has suggested faux-fur as an alternative. But the fur companies, which are desperately fighting the bill, argue that faux-fur is bad for the environment because it doesn’t last as long and is not biodegradable. More important, they are making an economic argument, pointing to a study that says 150 small companies in the city specialize in fur, employ 1,500 people and have annual sales of $440 million.
When surveyed, virtually all the companies said they would close or leave the city if the bill becomes law. They said the activists’ claim that those workers could find other good jobs easily is ridiculous.
The study also found that retailers who sell fur as one part of their business would lose $320 million in sales and be forced to cut back in one way or another.
Johnson’s support for the bill is right out of the Bill de Blasio playbook. In his 2013 run for mayor, one of de Blasio’s earliest pledges was to ban the Central Park horse carriages. Supporters of that aim then launched a million-dollar ad campaign to damage the mayoral candidacy of then-Speaker Christine Quinn. She never recovered. Johnson seems to be angling for a similar boost. (Of course, trying to implement his promise hamstrung de Blasio, and the carriages remain.)
Navigating the politics of this issue have proved a challenge for Johnson. He said last week that he wouldn’t try to ban the sale of leather. There also might be religious exemptions, such as allowing the sale of fur hats worn by Orthodox Jews.
More to the point, Johnson has illustrated a major difference between himself and Quinn, who immediately preceded him as the council member for the Garment District. Quinn was a resolute defender of every single garment job in her district. Not so the speaker.
CORRECTION May 14, 2019: Nick Pologeorgis is the owner of Pologeorgis Furs. His name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.