Pamela Paquin, of Petite Mort fashions, scrapes animal carcasses off the side of the road and turns their pelts into glamorous fur accessories (like gloves and legwarmers) that sell for up to $1,000 a piece. “People need to look at my fur and say okay, that’s Petite Mort, it’s an ethical fur,” Paquin sas.
The idea of roadkill fur had been in Pamela’s head for a few years, before she actually decided to actually make it happen. But after traveling the world as a global sustainability consultant and living in Denmark for seven years, she and her daughter returned to New England, looking to start over. She told the Washington Post that she found herself “sitting in the woods literally staring at the trees. Winter was coming. I was like: ‘What am I doing to do with myself?” There was that dead raccoon on the road the other day. My cousin’s a hunter. Maybe I should just do this.’”
And so she did.
Having grown up on a dairy farm, in a family that raised and hunted animals, Paquin never had any problems with collecting animals carcasses. In the 6th grade, she took the bodies of dead animals she found on the roadside of her Massachusetts home to school, for dissection, so you can say she definitely had some background for the trade. That said, skinning an animals that has been dead for some time is never easy. Pamela found that out, last year, while skinning her first animal – a raccoon so rotten that its insides had totally liquefied. It was gross experience, but she got through it and now raccoon is her most popular pelt
So far, customers have responded positively to her creations. “The fact that guilt is totally taken out of the equation is also a plus,” she says. “Fur is a very sensual and luxurious product that has been shamed and shameful for a very very long time. This is a shameless fur. This is champagne all night and no hangover.”
(via Oddity
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