One designer is making roadkill fur fashionable

One Boston-area clothing designer is offering a fur-industry alternative by creating apparel from roadkill, or “accidental fur,” as she calls it.

Pamela Paquin, owner of Petite Mort Furs, said she is providing another source for fur besides wild trapping and large-scale fur farms, WCVB reported, adding that Paquin’s company creates roadkill-sourced neck muffs, leg warmers, hats, purses and more.

“All this fur is being thrown away,” Paquin said to WCVB. “If we can pick that up, we never have to kill another fur-bearing animal again.”

Animal rights groups have mixed feelings about roadkill fur, WCVB stated.

“We’d just say it’s in very poor taste,” WCVB quoted Kara Holmquist at the Massachusetts SPCA, while Lisa Lange, a senior vice president at PETA, said there’s “never an excuse” to wear fur.

Paquin skins many of the carcasses herself, WCVB reported, also stating that she considers the process almost sacred and doesn’t like the “roadkill” label.

“I tend to call it ‘accidental fur,’ because of course we all have a different idea of what is and is not ethical,” Paquin, who sources the furs from highway departments, animal control officers and wildlife officers, said to Vermont Public Radio.

Petite Mort Furs’ products range between $800 to $2,000 and can be found online and on Newbury Street in Boston, WCVB stated

“The value that these products have is that they’re handmade, local and last a lifetime,” Paquin said to WCVB, which reported that each piece also has a personalized note explaining where and when the animal was found.