Fur is back. It’s been around in East End vintage boutiques for a while now, while designer labels like Gucci and Fendi never stopped producing it. Posh furriers in Knightsbridge and Mayfair are also doing a roaring trade, and it can even be found sneaking its way onto the high street.

More and more, you can see items made of real creatures -- often rabbit. Earmuffs, trims on hooded coats and, quite strangely, as the bobble on quite a lot of high-end knitted bobble hats. Steadily, and stealthily, it’s becoming more normal to see real animal hide in the shops.

I, for one, don’t really like it –- it seems unnecessary and also it's kind of bad taste, isn’t it? It actually seems to be more bad taste when it’s subtle. Like a full-on Pat Butcher-esque, in your face, faux-fur leopard coat is actually quite cool because it’s not pretending to blend into anything, whereas an expensive puffa jacket with a discreet real fur trim is kind of repulsive.

But wait a second, I myself own a fully furry real fur jacket. How, in the name of BEJESUS did I end up with that? I don’t know. I’ve been a vegetarian for more than 20 years, although I do wear leather.

It was purchased one winter, 2010 since you ask. I didn’t have a coat and it wouldn’t stop snowing and being freezing outside, so I set off to find one for a double-figure budget and I couldn’t come up with anything. Being skint is rubbish.

All I wanted was either a navy wool single breasted number with a funnel neck OR a grey Prince of Wales check overcoat with a sort of fashionably mannish thing going on, and there was nothing -- NOTHING under a hundred pounds, in fact, very little under £200.

This article originally appeared on xoJane.co.uk. Read the rest here!