2008 Nov 09

Kate’s fury over fake fur rug … that wasn’t

As A staunch anti-fur advocate, Kate Winslet has always been meticulously careful about what she wears – and what she poses with.

So when the Titanic star was asked to drape herself over a luxuriant fur rug for a provocative glossy magazine photoshoot, she was quick to seek reassurances that it was made from artificial fibres.

But now the magazine, Vanity Fair, has been forced to apologise after admitting that the actress had been misled and that the throw was really genuine fox fur.

The 33-year-old wore nothing but Agent Provocateur stockings and Yves Saint Laurent heels for the raunchy shots by acclaimed photographer Steven Meisel.

While they were setting up the photoshoot in Los Angeles, Miss Winslet was told the fur was fake. But, in fact, she was posing on an £11,500 silver fox fur throw, flown 2,500 miles from the Boston store of Italian luxury bedlinen firm Frette.

Asked if Miss Winslet had been misled, her spokeswoman said: ‘That’s correct. She thought it was false. There was apparently false fur there and real fur there, and she definitely understood it was false.

‘Kate never wears fur. She’s very, very firm on that.’

A Vanity Fair spokeswoman confirmed: ‘Although there were both real and fake furs on set, the fur used in the photograph is real. We thought Miss Winslet was aware of this and we’re sorry for the miscommunication.’

On its website, Frette proudly details the origins of its products, which are made from deerskin, python skins and the fur from mink, chinchilla and foxes.

‘Foxes are prized for their long soft fur in a variety of beautiful natural colours,’ it says.

‘Frette uses only natural farmed varieties, black, silver and golden fox, to create stunning home accessories.’

As a staunch anti-fur advocate, Kate Winslet has always been meticulously careful about what she wears – and what she poses with.

So when the Titanic star was asked to drape herself over a luxuriant fur rug for a provocative glossy magazine photoshoot, she was quick to seek reassurances that it was made from artificial fibres.

But now the magazine, Vanity Fair, has been forced to apologise after admitting that the actress had been misled and that the throw was really genuine fox fur.

The 33-year-old wore nothing but Agent Provocateur stockings and Yves Saint Laurent heels for the raunchy shots by acclaimed photographer Steven Meisel.

While they were setting up the photoshoot in Los Angeles, Miss Winslet was told the fur was fake. But, in fact, she was posing on an £11,500 silver fox fur throw, flown 2,500 miles from the Boston store of Italian luxury bedlinen firm Frette.

Asked if Miss Winslet had been misled, her spokeswoman said: ‘That’s correct. She thought it was false. There was apparently false fur there and real fur there, and she definitely understood it was false.

‘Kate never wears fur. She’s very, very firm on that.’

A Vanity Fair spokeswoman confirmed: ‘Although there were both real and fake furs on set, the fur used in the photograph is real. We thought Miss Winslet was aware of this and we’re sorry for the miscommunication.’

On its website, Frette proudly details the origins of its products, which are made from deerskin, python skins and the fur from mink, chinchilla and foxes.

‘Foxes are prized for their long soft fur in a variety of beautiful natural colours,’ it says.

‘Frette uses only natural farmed varieties, black, silver and golden fox, to create stunning home accessories.’

New role: Kate Winslet in her new film Revolutionary Road with Leonardo DiCaprio

Animal rights campaigners estimate that the throw used in the photoshoot required the pelts of at least six animals.

A spokesman for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said: ‘We were surprised to see Kate in Vanity Fair posing with what looked like a real fur throw.

‘PETA has heard from countless celebrities that sneaky stylists at photoshoots can be rather coy when it comes to fur and whether it’s real or not.

‘So it seems Kate was duped – and with so many convincing fakes out there nowadays, it is easy to mistake real animal skins for the fakes. We’re pleased to be able to count Kate among the many celebrities, such as Eva Mendes, Charlize Theron, Pink and Sadie Frost, who would never wear real fur.’

The controversial picture was one of a series paying homage to French actress Catherine Deneuve, who posed in a similar fashion in her 1967 movie Belle De Jour.

Another photograph showed Miss Winslet wearing just a trench coat and shoes.
The actress’s seductive pose on the chaise longue was the subject of much speculation last week, with experts discussing how much the photograph was retouched.

The actress’s seductive pose on the chaise longue was the subject of much speculation last week, with experts discussing how much the photograph was retouched.

The actress was ‘furious’ about claims she had been airbrushed, and Vanity Fair said it had only retouched her skin tone to remove blemishes, as is common practice in glossy magazines.

This is not the first time Miss Winslet – who is married to film director Sam Mendes and has two children, Mia, eight, and Joe, five – has run into problems with photoshoots. In 2003 she objected strenuously when GQ magazine manipulated her image to make her look taller and thinner.

She said then: ‘I don’t look like that and I don’t desire to look like that. It wasn’t that they simply retouched my image, they completely stretched it so I looked like I was six feet tall and a size two.’

Miss Winslet is the youngest actress to have received five Oscar nominations, but she has never won one of the coveted statuettes.

She has again been tipped for Academy Award honours for two movies due out early next year: Revolutionary Road, a drama set in Fifties suburbia, directed by her husband, that will reunite her with her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio; and The Reader, in which she stars as a German woman exposed as a Nazi and put on trail for war crimes.

SOURCE:  James Tapper; Mail on Sunday, Sunday November 9th 2008