Canada known around world for quality fur
Montreal furriers optimistic about future, despite fragmented market
On a damp, miserable grey spring day, all was warm and bright in the Argiriou Furs storefront on Bleury St.
Wild, fuzzy furs — coyote, bobcat and lynx, red fox and beaver — hung in the modest store, behind which is a small factory, where a handful of men, including three of the four Argiriou brothers, worked clad in fuzz-covered lab coats.
Angelo Argiriou was speaking for the brothers, who opened their business in 1980. He started in the trade in 1971 as a floor boy in the Gordon Brown Building, part of the city’s historic fur district on Bleury, Mayor and St-Alexan- dre Sts. and de Maisonneuve Blvd., and now the edge of the high-rent Quartier des Spectacles.
The Argirious are among a handful of Montreal furriers who are taking part in two Montreal trade shows this season, StyleLab in March, and starting Sunday, Outerwear Extravaganza. They will also go to the Chicago International Luxury Outerwear Expo, which is the draw for American fur buyers now that Montreal’s NAFFEM — which ran for 31 years — ended after last year’s edition.
Argiriou became increasingly heated as he looked back on his years in the industry, even though he says the family’s business is not suffering, with the whole- sale and retail operations bringing in up to $4 million a year, and with 80 per cent of production exported. (They also run a shop, Elysée Furs, in nearby Complexe Desjardins.)
“We had very good years in the 1980s,’’ Argiriou said.
“We were known for wild furs,’’ he said. “We had the best name. If you wanted to buy something of quality, you had to visit Montreal.”
StyleLab was a disappoint- ment. “There were no buyers. How can you go to a fair where there are no buyers?”
He has no expectations for Outerwear Extravaganza: “I don’t know yet. I hope for one strong show.’’ And he questions why Chicago, with no fur industry of its own, should have a fur fair.
When most of the city’s furriers moved to the Chabanel garment district in 2005 as rents in the downtown area rose, Argiriou and his brothers bought the building on Bleury St.
“I am not in the textile business. I am in the fur business,” he said. “I love the fur industry. While I am on my two legs, (I will stay downtown). This is where the game is.”
And he remains optimistic for the fur trade. “The name in quality furs around the world is Canada, and this is not going to disappear so quickly,’’ Argiriou said.