The Demise of Mink Inc.

When the answer to “What becomes a legend most?” changed from Blackgama to acrylic, furs and the business of fur storage suffered a big chill. Edward Borovay, a small man with a quick smile and 50-year love affair with fur, has watched business at his eponymous downtown store shrink accordingly.

“Back in the ‘60s, a woman would throw on a fur to do her grocery shopping,” Borovay says as he smooths the collar of a Russian ermine jacket. “But the ‘80s triple-whammy of warm weather, a bad economy and animal activists put a kibosh on the fur business.”

Edward Borovay Furs, which shares a city block with the elegant Oviatt Building, once boasted 15 employees and 3,500 fur coats for sale or stored in a climate-controlled vault to protect them from heat, humidity and insects. In the ‘50s, the Chicago native had created a fur wonderland of sorts within every inch of his 6,000-square-foot space: a pool table where men could sneak in a game of eight ball while their wives tried on sables and foxes; a wet bar stocked with top-of-the-line scotch and bourbon; a showroom replete with a stage, where three full-time models struck poses in the latest fur fashions, from ankle-grazing minks to waist-skimming boleros.

But today, Borovay’s storage vaults house only 350 furs, some of which haven’t been worn in years by their celebrity owners (Borovay won’t name names). The pool table went to a nephew. The wet bar is merely damp. The massive showroom sits empty and dark. The in-and-out privileges that come with Borovay’s $50-per-season storage fee are rarely enjoyed.

Furs, by all appearances, just aren’t fun. The Italian starlet who once purred, “This leopard is having a better time on my back than it ever did in the jungle,” would be run out of town. And though Borovay argues that most furs today come from animals raised on ranches for their pelts, the leather jacket, boot and belt crowd wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something, well, dead and furry.

Borovay knows fur’s glory days are behind him, but the 69-year-old is not yet ready to retire. “When I’d bring a woman into the vault to see those furs,” he recalls with a wink, pulling himself up to his full 5 feet and 4 inches, “suddenly I was 6 feet tall and handsome.”