JO HAYWOOD gets under the skin of one of next season's standout styles and asks if real women should wear fake fur.

Is beauty only skin deep? If the abundance of leather, suede, sheepskin and fur heading for our high street fashion stores is anything to go by, the answer is a resounding yes. Ten years ago compassion was the name of the game in fashion and no one would have been seen dead in real fur, especially not the cuddly creatures who were born wrapped from head to toe in the stuff. But in recent years those fervent calls to ban fur from the catwalk have become little more than distant whispers, and supermodels Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, who once proclaimed publicly that they "would rather go naked than wear fur" have gone back on their word and have slipped into something soft and silky in the name of catwalk style.

In 1985 fewer than 50 designers used fur in their collections. By 1999 that figure had risen to 220, and by 2000 it was pushing the 400 mark. This marked rise in fur's popularity led to mink production increasing from 2.6 million to a staggering 28.6 million, skins with prices rocketing by 15 per cent over the same period.

Although these figures are disputed by Peta, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which claims the world mink production has actually fallen by ten per cent, the evidence coming from the catwalks seems to back the industry figures.

In the last couple of seasons big-name design houses like Oscar de la Renta, Fendi, Marc Jacobs, Vera Wang, Tommy Hilfiger, Bottega Veneta and Carolina Herrera have featured fur in their collections. And now the high street is following suit - although household names such as House Of Fraser, Miss Selfridge, New Look and Argos are doing the decent thing and faking it.

Faux fur is everywhere for autumn, nestling comfortably alongside leather, suede and sheepskin on the rails. The colours are inspired by nature, with black, browns, russets and creams at the fore, and the cuts hark back to hippie chic, with fringing, patchwork and layering making their presence known.

But does this change of heart over furry fashions mean that real fur and skins are here to stay? Possibly, but not on a scale to match the excesses of the early Eighties.

Too many consumers are still haunted by images from the David Bailey advert for Lynx in the Nineties, showing a model dragging a bleeding fur down a catwalk, for department stores to consider reinstating the huge refrigerators they used to keep their fur coats in tip-top condition.

This doesn't mean that the fur industry is giving up the fight though.

It is constantly introducing new treatments that side-step our squeamishness by, for instance, blending fabrics to disguise their origin or sheering pelts so they look and feel like velvet.

For some of us, however, that simply begs the question: if it looks like velvet and it feels like velvet, why not just wear velvet?

Updated: 09:35 Saturday, August 24, 2002