Situating Fur

By Darién Maslov Lescrauwaet, Lauriane Smets and Myrte De Vidts

Magazin L. Beer Corbel, Rue St. Jean, Brussels (architect: Dubois-Petit), plate from Moderne Städtebilder, Abt. 1: Neubauten in Brüssel, 1900, photographic plate, Museum of Architecture, Berlin Institute of Technology.

Fur occupied a prominent place in Brussels’s urban culture. It was stored in commercial warehouses and basements, sorting rooms and cold-storage facilities. It was worked in ateliers and workshops, sorting rooms and sewing rooms. And it appeared in shop windows, department stores, theatres and fashionable streets. Yet the fur garments encountered in the city were never merely local products. They belonged to an international trade in animal skins that connected Brussels to distant hunting grounds, commercial centres, and systems of exchange.

The international fur trade linked Belgium to regions and cities far beyond its borders. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, North America and Siberia remained major suppliers of animal pelts, including Chinchilla, marten, (silver) fox, mink, skunk and the stoat (ermine). These pelts moved through complex networks of hunting, trapping, preservation, transport, sale and exchange, before reaching European auction houses and furriers. In Canada, the fur trade relied heavily on Indigenous labour and knowledge, especially in the hunting and trapping of animals. This long chain of handling shaped not only the availability of fur in Europe, but also the commercial categories and qualities through which it was understood and valued.

Within Europe, Leipzig formed one of the most important centres of the international fur trade. Pelts from across the world arrived there to be sorted, processed, sold and redistributed through the city’s firms and commercial networks. Its role was that of an intermediary: linking hunting and trapping regions to the European markets in which fur would be marketed and transformed into fashion. Paris played a different but equally important role. As a centre of high fashion, it helped shaped the demand for particular furs through fashion magazines, retail culture and association with designers and couture houses.

Belgium also formed part of this wider system. Through the port of Antwerp, the fur trade was connected to international shipping routes and merchant networks that included German traders active in the Belgian sector. Brussels occupied a different position. As Belgium’s political capital and one of its principal commercial centres, Brussels developed rapidly during the nineteenth century, with new boulevards and modern retail spaces that signalled its metropolitan ambitions. These changes reflected a desire to position the city alongside larger European metropolises such as London and Paris. Thus, rather than functioning as a major trading hub or fashion capital, Brussels instead became an important Belgian centre for the retail and consumption of fur. Consequently, prominent retailers such as Raymond Mallien, Hirsch & Cie, Salon de la Mode and Au Bon Marché positioned fur within a world of fashionable display and metropolitan refinement.

The location of these retailers within the city was itself significant. Firms such as Hirsh & Cie, Raymond Mallien, and Ch. Muller were situated on or near Rue Nueve, Boulevard Bischoffsheim, and Le Grand Sablon, streets associated with fashionable retail, luxury display, and middle- or upper-class shopping. These addresses placed fur within the everyday geography of metropolitan consumption: close to department stores, dressmakers, cafés, theatres, or other commercial attractions. Mapping these locations shows how deeply fur was embedded in the commercial geography of Brussels, not as an isolated specialist trade, but as part of the city’s wider landscape of fashion and luxury.

Fur was an important material embedded in the heart of Brussels’s streetscape and retail economy. Its presence in the city’s shops, department stores, catalogues, advertisements, and shopping streets shows how closely the trade in animal skins was tied to the ordinary structures of urban commerce. In conclusion, fur in Brussels was both a visible part of everyday urban commerce. While the city was not a centre of production or fashion innovation, it played a key role in retail and display of fur. This position highlights how global trade, labour and metropolitan consumption were closely interconnected in shaping Brussel’s urban life.

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