At his East Memphis shop, furrier Jim Holloway was ironing muskrat to make a man's coat. Later, he used a fur knife to cut pelts, some of which he buys from trappers in this region, and sewed pieces together on a 1930s looping machine.
Furrier Jim Holloway of Holloway Furs can turn a mink coat into a bomber jacket (for $300 to $700), or turn a mink stole into a vest ($700 to $800).
Holloway is one of the last of a dying breed, a furrier who does his own handiwork -- designing, cutting and sewing fur coats and other items. He has been especially busy lately because fur, both real and faux, is a big fall fashion trend.
"I've never seen so many women bringing magazine clippings," he said. Many want fur trim added to their coats or to have old mink stoles turned into trendy vests.
Holloway grew up in Water Valley, Miss., where he was a trapper from age 12 to 30. He caught raccoon, fox, bobcat, beaver and mink, stretched and dried the skins and sold them on the open market.
He came to Memphis in 1984 and apprenticed with now-deceased master furriers Hewlett Lewers for two years and Grady Horton for seven. In 1988, he also worked as a master furrier for King Furs, restyling, altering and repairing furs and overseeing the cleaning. In 1992, he started his own business, Holloway Fur Co., which is now at 404 Perkins Ext.
He's an animal lover who has a menagerie of pets, as well as two horses he keeps in Water Valley, where he owns four log cabins. They were handbuilt by a friend and trapper who went to Alaska to start a bear-hunting service.
"I don't think any furrier I ever knew got as excited about it as I did," said Holloway, who can't stop talking about furs. "When you love something, you eat, sleep and breathe it," he said.
Flipping over a top-quality mink coat, he exposed thousands of short seams that branched through it like veins. The coat was "let out," which means it was made by cutting fur in narrow strips and stitching them together in such a way that it produces a coat that
appears to be seamless. It may take him 180 to 220 hours to make such a coat.
He gets some help from his only assistant, Jimmie Morris, who does finishing work and embroidery.
"True furriers are very rare," said Al Hernandez, furrier at Fletcher & Bensky Furs in Little Rock, the largest full-service furrier in Arkansas. "Holloway is excellent. He makes it as if he were going to wear it himself."
Most American furriers are in New York, said Memphian Greg Gang, a retired millwork manufacturer who grew up in his family's fur trade business in New York and created fur coats himself for 10 years. Americans and Canadians still make the best fur coats, he said, but their numbers are dwindling for lack of apprentices. Young people don't care to learn the craft.
Gang helped teach Holloway cutting and sewing, "but he is far better than I ever was," he said. "He understands couture, style, trends and matching furs," which takes great skill, especially when restyling an old fur.
Holloway views trapping and hunting as part of the ecosystem. He says sometimes those are the most humane ways to handle the overpopulation of beaver and deer that damage crops and land and predators such as fox, bobcat and raccoon that eat turkey eggs, among other things.
"For every hunter and trapper, the No. 1 concern is that the species be preserved and properly managed so the sport never goes away," he said.
Holloway turns mink jackets into fashionable bomber jackets and made a lining for one man's Burberry jacket out of his wife's old mink coat. Old furs may also become fur pillows and throw rugs. He's especially proud of his custom beaver blankets.
Prices vary, but in general, collars and cuffs from his recycled minks can be added to a coat for about $300 to $700, depending on the size of the collar. A mink stole can be turned into a vest for $700 to $800.
Restyling a mink coat can cost anywhere from $150 to $1,500, depending partly on whether the coat must be enlarged. But restyling may be worthwhile since mink coats have doubled in price in the last 10 years, he said, mainly because of growing demand from China.
Holloway said his craft dates to the 1400s. But the first master furrier may go back much further. He keeps Genesis 3:21 carved in wood on his front desk: "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them."
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