Delicate workmanship

Unique production: where and how fur coats are made in Belarus

In November, Chairwoman of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly Natalya Kochanova visited the design centre of GNL (Genuis. National. Lovely) natural fur products of Belkoopsoyuz’s Belkoopvneshtorg and talked with employees. She said that as soon as the Council of the Republic received information about problems at the enterprise, she decided to look into the situation personally. The fact is that over the past few years the number of workers here has almost halved, and wages have fallen. But most of all, GNL specialists are worried that the enterprise will be closed altogether, and then the skill sets of the craftswomen, which have been developed over the years, will be lost forever. Our reporters also visited the GNL design centre, met the craftswomen and learned the intricacies of furriery.

Nadezhda Alshevskaya

High level professionals 

The head of the department for the production and sale of products made from natural fur, Irina Kozyreva, brought us up to date. The company employs furriers and cutters — and this is a profession that cannot be learned at a college or technical school. Firstly, because it is manual work, secondly, it takes a long time, and thirdly, it is expensive.


“No computer can capture all the nuances of fur colour and edges, because fur is a living material. And if you consider that one product requires about 30 mink skins, then defects in such a matter is a luxury we can’t afford. Our specialists work using the intarsia technique [a type of inlay]. That is, they don’t just make a solid canvas from skins, but also select the colour combination in such a way that it forms a single picture. The same is with the quality of mink, it should be identical. In the post-Soviet space, few people can work in this technique,” Irina Kozyreva explains.
However, if we talk about collectibles, there will be no analogues in the whole world. The Belarusian collectible model of a fur coat is created only once and is not repeated after that, even at the request of the client.


“We are professionals of the highest level in this. We have always participated in international competitions, because winning them gives us the opportunity to undergo training in serious laboratories on the latest fur technologies. In 2019, in the Vogue Italy competition, our works were included in the top ten of the world’s strongest furriers. Our collection also made a splash in Shanghai. Now we are considering proposals from the Chinese side for co-operation; this market is new for us, but there is interest in Belarusian fur products. And this is a fact,” Irina Kozyreva emphasised.
In addition, there is demand in the domestic market. And not only for fur coats, but also for vests, fur mittens, hats and stoles. Production is waste-free. They even adapted to making key chains from the remains of the skins.


“We have built a reputation over many years. They call from stores and ask for our products because they are of the highest quality. In 2017, our company presented the technology for using RFID tags for fur products [electronic product passport] in Grodno at the meeting of prime ministers of the EAEU countries. This innovation contributed to the subsequent adoption of a law to protect the EAEU fur market from fakes and counterfeits,” the head of the department noted.

For any colour and budget 

It is also interesting that the Belarusian team wore costumes that included headdresses made of natural fur at the 2006 Winter Olympics. They were created by the hands of craftsmen who work in the design centre to this day. Yes, the GNL design centre team has employees who have been working hand in hand for more than 20 years. 
This team was gathered all over the country. The selection has always been and is serious — not every talented seamstress is suitable, and it will not be possible to simply train a person from the street. Seeing the undertones of fur and the differences in its edges is almost a piece of jewellery. It’s not for nothing that fur is called soft gold.
“I really love working with intarsia technique, there is a lot of creativity in it. Especially when a designer comes up with new models, we all work on them together. It’s nice that we dress people in good quality fur and that they look beautiful in our products,” 7th skill category furrier Nadezhda Alshevskaya, who has been with the team since 2004, says.
They also asked the employees about the story with the well-known Angelika Agurbash. “Of course, it’s a shame that an interesting idea turned into a mean scandal,” they replied. The designers who create fur coats comparable to works of art, as well as the furriers who sewed the products by hand, were simply abandoned. The economic court sided with the enterprise, and the would-be singer went abroad. However, the contribution of fashion designers and designers, like time, cannot be returned...
  “The product must be both beautiful and comfortable, only then will it be sold. We also have good classics that are sold in stores, and we also have collectible models. 
The collection is released once a year and includes from 20 to 40 fur coats. One product takes at least 2 weeks to sew, and on average about 3–4 weeks.
Therefore, this is quite a long and painstaking work. And if Russians, for example, buy more collectible designer models made from mink, then the Chinese are interested in products made from fox and arctic fox,” the designer of the company, Svetlana Ivanova, emphasised.
Previously, the company produced about 700 fur coats per year, and for a small team of 40 people this figure is excellent, but now they cannot produce in the same volumes. Employees of the design centre claim that there is an abundance of raw materials, and they are ready to train young specialists at the enterprise. The team was inspired after the meeting with the speaker of the Council of the Republic — there was hope not only to revive the design centre, but also to develop it, once again conquer with its talent at international competitions and make high-quality products for compatriots. After all, no matter what anyone says about the fashion for eco-fur and so on, natural fur has been and will always be worn. 

By Yulia Demeshko

Potos by Darya Titova and gnl.by