After its demise in the mid 1900s taxidermy is back in fashion.
Taxidermy is fashionable again today and is linked to "authenticity", especially with Haute Couture
Taxidermy is fashionable again, but today, it’s much less about aspiring to be like the aristocratic classes; it’s much more linked to the current trend for authenticity which is particularly noticeable with Haute Couture.
Themes of Animals, Birds and Feathers in Fashion
From about the early 2000s Fashion designers also returned to the theme of animals, birds and feathers for their haute couture shows. Alexander McQueen is one example. Simon Wilson, working as Simon the Stuffa, is a modern designer, taxidermist and artist who designs for movies and TV and creates taxidermy themed accessories for McQueen’s fashion shows.
Whether it’s because of their composition and setting in beautiful cases or their historical rarity or importance, these pieces are sought after now and after the drop in interest and appreciation of them from the 1960s onwards the good pieces that have survived are now very much in demand.
Taxidermy Out of Fashion
The arrival of photography and television was the end of taxidermy in the mid 1900s.
Taxidermy was out of fashion when the arrival of photography meant that there was no need to see animals up close in order to study them. Photography first became available for the mass-market in 1901 with the introduction of the Kodak Brownie.
The First World War that ended in 1918 had destroyed the British economy and taxidermy was no longer on a list of “must haves” for the standard British family. After the 1st world war there were no jobs. The family unit had been decimated, and industry had stalled after so many of its workers had been killed.
Taxidermy was simply not important.
The arrival of television cements the overall decline in the demand and interest in Victorian taxidermy.
Once the economic recovery started after the 2nd world war, technology moved fast, and when mass adoption of television arrived in Britain after 1945, people relied less upon taxidermy species found in museums for education because television brought science and education into the living room.
People could see animals as never before on the television screens in their own homes. Who needed to have taxidermy?
By the mid 1960s taxidermy was history.
By the 70’s and 80’s fur for clothing like coats and hats and big game hunting were shunned as wildlife conservation became an urgent topic.
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