Mink Jacket Buying Guide: Lengths, Shapes and Fit

A mink jacket is the fur that gets worn. A full-length is for evenings and the coldest weeks; a jacket goes over jeans on an ordinary Tuesday, sits comfortably in a car, and is the piece we suggest to anyone buying a first fur. This is what we tell that buyer in our New York workroom: where a jacket ends, which shape does what, how to judge the fur, what the colours are called, how it should fit and what you are paying for.

Below: length, the shapes, judging the fur, colour, men’s jackets, mink against fox and sable, fit and plus size, the price, and how to see a jacket on yourself before you decide.

Where a Jacket Ends

Length is what makes it a jacket. Cropped ends above the waist and is cut for high-waisted jeans or a dress. Waist-length sits on the belt line. Hip-length, the classic, covers a sweater and the top of your trousers, and it is the one that suits most heights. Past the hip it becomes a stroller, our word for a length between the hip and mid-thigh: see the mink strollers. Longer than that it is a mink coat, which has its own buying guide.

The Shapes

Three of this autumn’s mink jackets show how far the shape has moved from the boxy jacket of thirty years ago: a ruffled jacket with a peplum, the short flared frill at the hem; a cropped jacket that zips to a stand collar; and a crop with puff shoulders and a notched collar.

The classic shapes do more work than they get credit for. A stand-up collar frames the face and closes against the wind, and deep turn-back cuffs let you wear the sleeve longer or shorter. A hood replaces a hat, which is why the hooded pieces also sit with our hooded furs. A belt gives a waist to a fur that would otherwise hang straight, and a zip front with leather trim makes it a jacket for the car, the game and the school run.

How to Judge the Fur

Press the fur flat with your palm and let go. Good mink springs straight back, and the guard hairs, the longer glossy hairs on top, lie evenly with a deep shine over a dense underfur. Then turn back the hem and look at the leather where you can: soft and pale is right, stiff or papery is not. The same checks are in our buying guide for every fur.

Then look at how the skins were worked, because on a jacket it changes the whole character. Let out means each skin was cut into narrow strips and re-sewn to run the length of the garment, which gives the unbroken vertical line; we showed it step by step in how let-out mink is made. Horizontal uses whole skins in bands across the body: lighter, more casual, and the look of most hooded and zip-front jackets. Sheared mink has the guard hair cut down to a short velvet pile, flatter and lighter again.

Female skins are smaller, lighter and silkier; male skins are larger and plusher. On a short jacket the difference in weight is small, so choose by feel. The darkest, most even ranch skins carry the Blackglama name, explained in what is Blackglama mink.

Colour

Natural mink needs no dye. Ranch is the brown-black most people picture, mahogany a rich red-brown, whiskey a warm golden brown, and there are natural greys and whites. A jacket in one of these goes with everything you own, and each has its own page: black mink, mahogany mink, whiskey mink and white mink.

A jacket is also where colour makes the most sense, because a short bright piece is easier to wear than a long one. The blush jacket at the top of this page is dyed mink with flounce sleeves, a sleeve that opens into a full bell below the elbow. From a good dye house the fur stays as soft as the natural skin, so judge a coloured piece with the same hand test: see pink mink, blue mink and red mink. If you cannot choose between two colours, the try-on below settles it faster than a mirror.

Men’s Mink Jackets

Men wear mink jackets too. The men’s whiskey mink jacket with a fox collar below is the kind of piece they ask us for: a man’s shoulder, a longer sleeve, a collar big enough to turn up, and a length that works over jeans. Bombers, bikers and hooded jackets are with the men’s mink jackets, and the full range of men’s fur coats, in mink, fox, chinchilla and sable, has its own buying guide.

A Mink Jacket Against Fox and Sable

Mink is the sleek one: short, dense, close to the body, and hard-wearing enough for every day. A fox fur coat or jacket is the opposite, long guard hair and real volume, a statement where mink is a habit; the two are compared in mink vs fox. Many jackets take a little of both: a mink body with a fox collar, or a hood trimmed in fox.

A sable coat is lighter, silkier and the most expensive fur we sell, and most people come to it after mink, usually starting with a jacket, as our sable buying guide explains. The two are set side by side in sable vs mink.

Fit, and Plus Size

A jacket shows its fit more than a long piece does, because there is less of it to drape. The shoulder seam sits on the point of your shoulder. The sleeve reaches the wrist bone with your arm down, with room for a sweater. Raise your arms: a cropped jacket will lift, and you should like where it lands. Then close it and sit down; it should not ride up to your chin. The rest is altered at a fitting in our workroom, which is how every piece leaves the shop.

Plus size is made, not scaled. We cut to your measurements, so the shoulder, the sleeve and the hem stay in proportion and a jacket ends where it should on you. The plus size fur coats collection is here, and the plus size guide covers which shapes flatter.

What the Price Is Made Of

A jacket needs far fewer skins than a full-length, which is why it is the least costly way to own new mink. After that, four things set the price: the grade of the skins, how they were worked (let-out costs more than horizontal), the trim (a fox collar, a leather belt, a hood), and the hours of matching and finishing. Last season’s pieces and one-offs go to the fur clearance page at the same quality, and an estate mink, cleaned and checked in our workroom, is another door in.

There is a third: the mink already hanging in a family closet. A restyle turns a dated full-length into a jacket you will actually wear, cut and fitted to you.

See It on Yourself First

Cropped or hip-length, black or blush: those are the decisions people get wrong from a photograph of someone else, and they are what our virtual fur try-on is for. Upload a picture of yourself taken straight on in good light, pick any jacket on the site, and it appears on you in about a minute, so you can see where a cropped hem lands 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 Paris in the snow, Central Park or a fine restaurant, and add boots or a pocketbook, so you see the jacket where you would wear it. Every picture keeps a small credit line at the bottom. It is honest about shape and colour, and it cannot tell you how the fur feels; that, and the final fit, are settled at a fitting in our New York workroom.

Keeping It

A jacket gets more wear than any other fur, so look after it between outings: a broad padded hanger, air around it, never plastic, and no heat, sunlight or perfume. If it gets wet in the snow, shake it out and let it dry at room temperature, away from a radiator. Each spring it goes into cold storage, and how to store fur explains why a closet in July does the damage a winter never will.

Questions

Is a mink jacket warm enough for winter?

For most of it, yes. Mink is dense and stops the wind, and a hip-length jacket with a stand collar or a hood, worn over a sweater, covers an ordinary New York winter day. For long walks in deep cold, a stroller or a full-length covers the legs as well. See the mink strollers.

Can a mink coat be made into a jacket?

Yes. A restyle shortens a full-length or a stroller into a jacket, re-cuts the shoulders and sleeves to today’s shape and fits it to you, provided the leather is still supple, which we check first. Fur restyling.

What do you wear with a mink jacket?

Jeans and boots by day, a dress or tailored trousers at night. A cropped jacket wants a high waist; a hip-length one goes over almost anything, which is why we suggest it as a first fur. Try one on your own photo.

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