Lillian Hellman – Blackglama – 1976
It’s been decades since I’ve seen a woman wearing a full-length black mink coat. The last such coat I saw was in a magazine ad, sported by Lillian Hellman, a playwright I admired. There was a big backlash: how could she? The Endangered Species Act was just coming into being and women in furs on New York streets sometimes had buckets of paint thrown on them.
“That’s quite a coat,” I murmured as she slid past me into the next seat.
She was ready for that. “It’s vintage,” she said. “I had it restyled.”
I’d done the same thing with mine, converting it into a less conspicuous jacket but I didn’t feel comfortable wearing it and I couldn’t give it to the Salvation Army. I have a hunch that a lot of women here in New Mexico and elsewhere have one of these coats lurking in the backs of closets, too good to throw out, too embarrassing to wear—also embarrassing because how few women could even afford such a dilemma.
Now I found myself making excuses. “Well, those animals died a long time ago.”
She smiled. She wasn’t in the least worried. And I remembered the public shaming Hellman went through when we were all waking up, at long last, to what was and is happening to all the creatures we don’t call human—and to us humans, soon.
But I admit I sort of admired this woman. Flashing her carefully applied cherry red lipstick, she was more assured than any woman I’ve met in a long time. She and her husband were sponsoring the play that evening (I wondered if the money was hers) and she stood up proudly to receive everyone’s applause.
“Those Texans,” my neighbor sighed the next evening.
Yes, they are devouring us here as they flee from their lowland heat and their lowland devastation. They bring money, they buy or build enormous houses, they manage to break our codes governing the height of new buildings; their license plates throng our small streets, their mansions block our view of the mountains.
I don’t know if the woman with the fur coat was from Texas. But even if she was, I have to admit to a sneaking admiration for her gall.
Sometimes we all get tired of being good.
I love this post Sallie, and the way you can be generous enough to hold the paradox of the ethics of a mink coat with the ability of a woman to not be afraid to show who she is. When I graduated from high school my father gave me a beautiful Russian Lynx coat, which I took off to college. I also was uncomfortable with wearing it. One day, when I was on my way home from school, getting ready to catch a plane, a stranger came up to me, full of love for my coat, I gave it to her right then.
How funny & further inspirational perspective to Sallie’s insightful paradoxical post – thank you both!
And of course – Happy Valentine’s Day!
My Mink
My mink belonged to a woman named Elsa
It is blonde, lustrous, chic
Sixty years later
With a shawl collar to wrap
A Swiss-accented lady
Santa Fe doctor’s wife
Cocktails at Claude’s
Dinner at the Pink
Bridge at Bishop’s Lodge
April in Paris
Christmas in London
Scent of Chanel lingers
In silk lining still
Red lipstick stains
Pocket-bunched hanky
Her daughter, friend of a friend
Gave this coat away
It lay in a rummage pile
Among outgrown jeans, faded tees, castoff beaded sandals
I slipped it on
It fit perfectly
Assuring me
That women once wore seamed stockings
Stepped out for the evening in high heels
With perfect confidence.
Sharon Niederman, 2010