Sable Coat Buying Guide: Russian Sable, Explained

A sable coat is the most expensive fur we sell and the lightest to wear, and the two facts are connected: the skins are small, scarce and silky, and a great many of them, hand-matched, go into one garment. This is what we tell a first-time buyer in our New York workroom: what Russian sable is, how to judge it, which length to start with, what the colours mean, and what you are paying for.

Below: what sable is, judging the fur, jacket, stroller or full-length, colour, sable against mink, chinchilla and fox, men’s and plus size, fit, the price, and how to see a piece on yourself before you decide.

What Sable Is

Sable is a small animal of the Siberian forests, a cousin of the marten, and nearly all the skins worth making a garment from are Russian. The finest come from the Barguzin region east of Lake Baikal: dark, dense and silky, with the silver-tipped guard hairs that collectors look for and no dye house has ever copied. Most Russian sable is wild rather than farmed, and the best skins are sold at auction, so the supply changes every season and has grown scarcer of late, as we explained in why chinchilla, lynx and sable went up.

Two other names turn up in shops. Golden sable is Russian sable in its pale amber shade, the one we see least often. Canadian sable is a different animal, the American marten: a shorter, less silky hair at a far lower price, often dyed to pass for its Russian cousin; honest fur, but not the same thing, and the label should say which. Sable’s place at the top of the ladder is in the most expensive furs in the world, and the two great furs sit side by side in sable vs mink.

How to Judge Sable

Run your hand against the fur and then with it. Good sable feels like silk both ways, with no coarseness in the guard hair, and it springs back the moment you lift your palm. Hold it to the light: the colour should run deep and even from skin to skin, with the silver tips catching as it moves. A piece that looks patchy from across the room was matched in a hurry, and matching is most of the work. Our buying guide for every fur walks through the same test.

Then lift it. Sable is lighter than any fur of its warmth, and a full-length piece should sit on the shoulders like a cardigan. Most of our jackets are worked in horizontal bands of whole skins; the full-length pieces run the skins vertically, which takes more of them and more hours. Everything we make in it is in the sable coats and jackets collection.

Jacket, Stroller or Full-Length

Our advice to a first-time buyer is to start with a jacket. It gives you the fur at a fraction of what a full-length costs, it goes over jeans on an ordinary Tuesday, and it is the piece you will wear most. A cropped jacket, a hip-length with a belt, a wide shawl collar: these are the three newest sable jackets and the shapes we are asked for first.

A stroller is our word for a length between the hip and mid-thigh: it covers a dress, gets in and out of a taxi without a fight, and is the length most New Yorkers live in. Full-length, mid-calf to the ankle, is the sable of the photographs: the warmest, the most formal, and the one that takes the most skins. A hood replaces a hat on the coldest nights; the hooded pieces also sit with our hooded furs.

Colour

Sable is not dyed, so the colour is the skin’s own. The darkest Barguzin skins read as near-black across a room and show their silver up close; the browns run from tortoiseshell to chestnut; the pale amber of golden sable turns heads in daylight. Dark is the classic choice; golden suits fair colouring and anyone who wants the fur noticed. Both are in the sable collection, and both can be tried on your own photograph below.

Sable Against Mink, Chinchilla and Fox

A mink coat is the fur most people buy first, and for good reason: it is denser, harder-wearing and a fraction of the price. Sable is lighter, silkier and warmer for its weight, and it is bought after mink rather than instead of it. If you want a dark, sleek, everyday piece, our mink buying guide is the one to read; a mink jacket with a sable collar is a way to have both.

Chinchilla is the one fur softer than sable, blue-grey and delicate, a piece for evenings rather than a winter of daily wear. A fox fur coat is the opposite of sable in every way: long guard hair, real volume, and a presence that announces itself, where sable is the quiet one. Sable is also the finest trim there is: see the sable tuxedo on a Blackglama mink.

Men’s and Plus Size

Men wear sable, and have since the tsars. The men’s Russian sable below is cut three-quarter length with a man’s shoulder and a longer sleeve, to go over jeans as easily as a suit, and the rest of our men’s fur coats, in mink, fox, chinchilla and sable, have their own page and their own buying guide.

Plus size is made, not scaled. We cut to your measurements, with the shoulder, the sleeve and the hem in proportion, so a sable hangs as lightly on a size 20 as on a size 8. The plus size fur coats collection is here, and the plus size guide covers which shapes flatter.

How It Should Fit

Sable is so light that a poor fit has no weight to hide behind. The shoulder seam sits on the point of your shoulder, not beyond it; the sleeves reach the wrist bone with room for a sweater; a full-length hem clears the ground in the shoes you will wear with it. The rest is altered at a fitting in our workroom, which is how every piece leaves the shop.

What the Price Is Made Of

Four things set it: the grade of the skins, with dark Barguzin at the top; how many a piece needs, which is why a jacket costs a fraction of a full-length; how closely they were matched; and the trim and the hours of work. Because Russian sable is mostly wild and sold at auction, the price moves with each season’s supply, which is the story behind the recent increases. An estate sable, cleaned and checked in our workroom, is the other door in, and a restyle turns an inherited full-length into a jacket you will actually wear.

See It on Yourself First

Dark or golden, jacket or full-length: those are the two decisions people get wrong from a photograph, and they are exactly what our virtual fur try-on is for. Upload a picture of yourself taken straight on in good light, pick any piece on the site, and it appears on you in about a minute, so you can see a Barguzin jacket against a golden stroller on your own body before you ask for a quote. It is free, needs no account, and everyone gets three try-ons a day.

The styler can change the background to a snowy street, a fine restaurant or a winter wedding, so you see the sable where you would wear it. Every picture keeps a small credit line at the bottom. The final fit and colour are settled at a fitting in our New York workroom.

Keeping It

Sable is not fragile, but its leather is finer than mink’s, so care counts for more: a broad padded hanger with air around it, never plastic, and no heat, sunlight or perfume. Each spring it goes into cold storage, where the cold keeps the leather supple and the moths out, and a furrier looks it over every year or two. Insure it, too: appraising and insuring a fur explains how, and how to store fur covers the rest.

Questions

What is Barguzin sable?

The finest grade of Russian sable, from the Barguzin region east of Lake Baikal in Siberia: the darkest, densest and silkiest skins, with the silver-tipped guard hairs that no dye has ever copied. See our Barguzin pieces.

Is sable warmer than mink?

Warmer for its weight. Mink is denser and harder-wearing; sable gives the same warmth at a fraction of the weight, which is why people who own one wear it more than anything else they have. Sable vs mink.

Why is sable so expensive?

The skins are small, mostly wild and scarce, sold at auction, and a full-length piece needs several dozen of them matched for colour and silver. A jacket needs far fewer, which is why we tell first-time buyers to start there. See the sable jackets.

Every piece is made and fitted in our New York workroom, where we have been cutting fur since 1870. See the sable coats and jackets, or try one on your own photo first.