While on the way to engage in the classic tradition of Halloweekend activities, I happily walked with my friend as she gushed about her new fur leg warmers that had really completed her costume. And she was right, it was perfect. When going out this Halloween, I began to notice that there were a ton of animal costumes and they went beyond the cliché cat ears and drawn-on whiskers. These pieces seemed less costumey and more aesthetic driven. There were recognizable elements in these outfits that were commonplace in everyday styling. I couldn’t stop thinking, “Is this like an elevated furry thing?” It was nothing like the fursuits worn by people that would come across my socials. With the exploding trend of faux fur sweeping many runways this past year, has the line between being a furry and being fashionable blurred?
Here at Cornell, people don’t normally go all out for Halloween. You may find a guy who paints himself blue, or a girl going as a sexy cop. And yet, I kept seeing these intricately detailed accessories that were nothing short of animalistic perfection.
Even on a night made for costumes, fashion seems to trickle in. And along with the addition of faux fur comes furry-adjacent pieces. It’s no wonder that people are gravitating toward these more fashionable accessories rather than something tacky for the holiday. Obtaining these furry pieces goes beyond the basics you might have seen in the past. After brands like Simone Rocha, Ferragamo and Sacai being seen on the runway, a lot of other top brands have been reimagining how fur can make its way into fashion. It was reported by InStyle that there was a 220% increase in searches on Net-a-Porter, a luxury women’s retailer, for these stylings. It was only a matter of time before it hit the average trend seeking college student.
If you have been on the fashion side of a social media platform, you may have become enamored with the faux fur lug boots that seem to be sweeping fashion as the new “it girl” shoe. These playful, excessive and exaggerated boots fall into an almost cartoon-like look. The versatility in colorways and heights has made them perfect for Halloween and any winter closet. These shoes rose to popularity as chunky boots and maximalism increased in popularity. You can often find them at an affordable price on TikTok Shop starting around $22, making them perfect for younger customers interested in fashion.
Another trend that I am obsessed with (so much so that I did it for Halloween a few years back) is the hats with animal ears. My first interaction with this style was a knit hat with two pointed edges near the top to create a feline ear effect, a trend from back in the early 2010s. Recently, it has remerged in grunge culture, being worn by the musical artist Beabadoobee and showing up in mainstream stores like Urban Outfitters. Besides this, I observed styles like furry trapper hats worn for lumberjack costumes, bunny ear baseball caps for a sweeter grunge look and other iterations of animal headwear that have become mainstream high fashion.
Among this trend of furry accessories is my favorite of them all the raccoon foot, animal tail accessory. This one usually raises a couple of eyebrows, but let me explain before you disagree.The biggest part of my explanation is my adoration for Chloé, a French luxury fashion house, specifically, Chloé’s fur keychain from the Winter 2025 collection. About a year ago, trends of rabbit feet or animal tail accessories exploded on the runway. These ranged from scarves to keychains, even to hats. This has also been prevalent in alternative and grunge fashion communities, clipping them onto bags and belt loops. These keychains are not explicitly connected to a person to be worn directly as a tail. Instead, they are inserted aesthetically in a rugged, hunter-like fashion. These options come from brands like Tory Burch and Etsy, offering a multitude of stylings.
There are many other fur-based pieces to drone on about, such as furry gloves, fur-covered leg warmers, and fur being intertwined into tops and bottoms that feel like fur is dominating fashion. This Halloween offered insight into a lot of fashion trends and their relativity in everyday life, because never before have I seen so many werewolves looking chic. While I may never understand the fascination with putting on a fursuit worth thousands of dollars and walking around convention grounds with an animal obsession that borders on bestiality, they may just be correct about their fascination with animal inspired clothing.
Jess Agran is a sophomore in the College of Human Ecology. She can be reached at jba76@cornell.edu.
