This is, at least until I find another one, the last full Armando Bó/Isabel Sarli update. Since I wasn’t paying attention, I would say this one is probably the second best, which is why it’s the third one I’m reviewing. The second was third best, and the first was first. Fuego – Fur Fashion Stats Fur Runtime: 15:06 minutes Film Runtime: 84 minutes On-Screen Ratio: 19.17% Find-a-Fur: Fuego, 1969 I somehow lost my notes on this, but the short version is: 33:30 - the blue fox coat sequence starts here…

This is exactly what I love to see in the ol' suggestion box. I had never heard of it, but it turns out to be a 20% club member. Recent trends aside, the 2020s are still pretty weak. It remains to be seen whether “boom boom” fashion makes any real impact in media, but so far it hasn’t escaped TikTok. So we’re left with indie fare like Grasshoppers to do a lot of the heavy lifting.  Grasshoppers – Fur Fashion Stats Fur Runtime:  26:12 minutes Film Runtime: 

Held off on Brantôme 81 until the technology caught up. Which is to say that the only version of this on the Internet is a shitty DVD rip, and my preferred consumer-grade upscaler of choice, Topaz, couldn’t do a satisfactory job of cleaning it up. That changed recently with the introduction of the Starlight diffusion model, so I decided to spend a considerable amount of time at 0.07 FPS and finally get this shit done. It’s still not ideal. The DVD version isn’t in full aspect ratio, so parts of the screen are cut off.

The next in what will be something of a “trilogy” of sorts from Argentine director Armando Bó. We started with perhaps the best of the three, The Insatiable Widow, so why not continue with the weakest: Fiebre. Now, there are a couple of reasons for that. First, and most importantly, it has the least amount of fur in it. Second, it poses an interesting dilemma to the viewer: How do you feel about a beautiful woman in a white mink coat on screen if it’s superimposed over a couple of horses… enjoying one another’s company?

Wow, according to the Wikipedia article, this was the most expensive Canadian film ever made when it was released in 1971. Clearly, things were a little less fiscally sound up north in the early 70s. Fortunately, it would appear that some of that budget went to costuming, because there is a nice variety of fur fashions on display (among other things). Not sure where on the timeline of “sexy ski comedies” this falls, but Snowballin’ seems like an earlier example of the genre.  Snowballin' – Fur Fashion Stats Fur Runtime: 

Honestly, this update should have been a YouTube short, but there are more than “one” or “two” things that will be of major interest in the film, so I guess we’re doing a formal update. While our favorite Italian film genre remains giallo, poliziotteschi is rapidly moving up the ranks. And Double Game, also known as Torino violenta, features one particularly impressive (and I’m not quite sure how plot-relevant) sequence. Double Game – Fur Fashion Stats Fur Runtime: 2:16 minutes Film Runtime: 93 mintues…

All good things… Oh, wait. That’s the wrong series finale. Anyway, Dynasty ending with the ‘80s was appropriate, to say the least. It epitomized '80s fur fashion, and both faded away at the same time. That being said, I also want to give credit where due: Dynasty was our strongest warrior. It is important to understand that what you’re seeing in this update was not the state of fur fashion on TV at this time. There’s way more here than you’d find pretty much anywhere else. The stats for the last three seasons were basically the same: about half an hour of fur fashion per season.

What can I say? Like fur fashion in the ‘80s, this story does not have a happy ending. After the lackluster seventh season, the budget and episode order were reduced to 22. This means the residents of Las Denverles were not buying many new furs. That is something of a blessing in disguise, as Alexis returns in a couple of iconic outfits from Season 6.  While you may notice the stats did not severely drop vs Season 7, there is still quite a bit of ‘filler’ and entirely forgettable outfits, particularly in the first half of the season.

Couple of reasons I wanted to do the show. First, it’s fucking awesome, of course. Second, it is a bellwether for fur fashion and the end of the ‘80s. Were one, say, alive during that time and paying attention to such things, one may have started to notice a certain troubling reduction in the number of furs appearing on their screens around 1987… as if the color was slowly draining from the world. This is apparent when we look at the overall stats for Season 7, which show a decline as dramatic as any shocking soap opera twist.

This almost became another two-parter, but it kind of fell on the margin, so I decided to keep it simple. So, it’s a longer update, to be sure. Since I already called Season 5 “peak,” what was Season 6? The network and the producers intended it to be “peak,” but it did not work out that way.  The show got a 30-episode order and a spin-off, which, yes, I will get to. It started with the highest-rated episode in the show's history, which was also part of the problem. People tuned in to see who survived “The Moldavian Massacre," and the answer was “pretty much everybody.” This answer was considered “disappointing.” 

This is more like the final 3rd of the season because there are more episodes where furs appear for a more extended period. Similar to the front end of the season, the furs dry up before the season finale because the season finale was set in Moldavia, which the producers seemed to think was in the Caribbean somewhere and not a mainly mountainous region of Europe. Technically, it was also a Soviet Republic in 1985, but I doubt the producers of Dynasty were doing a deep dive into the geo-political situation at the time.

We have arrived: peak Dynasty. So peak that I’m splitting Season 5 into two posts because: is big, is very very big. Peak fur fashion and peak ratings, as Season 5 is when it became the #1 show on TV. From Episode 7, there is an almost uninterrupted string of furs on the show until Episode 27. Since I’m splitting it up, I’ll touch on the whys of that in the next update, but, short version: no one packed furs for Moldavia. Dynasty Season 05 - Episode 01…

Were we misled? If I sketched out what I expected, I would have shown a firmly front-loaded curve that climbed to a high point around Season 5 and then started the inevitable descent toward the hell otherwise known as “the 90s.” But I think there’s a bit of a dip, perhaps a “plateau” of sorts because I don’t feel like Season 4 really bested the latter half of Season 3.  The numbers show little growth; almost exactly the same amount of fur parceled out across 18 episodes instead of 16. And the quality?

Season 3 is where, as the kids say, they “lock-in.” The formula is refined to perfection, becoming one of the top 10 shows on TV. This is reflected in several ways, including in fashion. Except for a minor early season blip, Alexis breaks free from the chains of “old lady fur” around Episode 15. While it is undoubtedly the case she will appear in mink or sable again as the series progresses, her fur wardrobe generally is far more dynamic after this. Which is to say: Thank goddess, she’s finally wearing fox.

Season 2 is where Dynasty solidifies into what would eventually conquer 80s evening television. New writers ditched all those shabby blue-collar plotlines and corporate oil business maneuvering to turn it into, well, a proper soap opera. They also cast Joan Collins as patriarch Blake’s ex-wife, which solidified the central antagonist role. Arguably, none of it was particularly “groundbreaking,” but that misses the point. It was exceptionally well executed and cast, producing an entertaining product that shot up in the ratings. Joan Collins was not the first choice for the role, but with all due respect to Jessica Walter, we now look back and think no one could have done it better. 

Fine, I’ll do it myself. Waiting for the official HD releases of Dynasty is a losing game, so here we go. The good news is that we start with a really easy one. Dynasty Season 1 is not the show that became the monster of nighttime television a few years later. The basic building blocks are there, but the resulting mansion is a tad… shabby. While the show would continue to be about the family at the head of a large oil business, the first season includes an entire plot line involving actual oil workers.

Superhero films did not spring into existence in the late 2000s. Back in the 1960s, many were (attempting to) cash in on the runaway success of a DC property: the Adam West Batman series. This particular slice of cinematic Italian cheese tosses in another classic 60's knockoff: James Bond, as our titular hero, is both a super and secret agent of sorts. Argoman - Fur Fashion Gallery Argoman - Fur Fashion Stats Fur Runtime: 7:17 minutes Film Runtime: 93 minutes On-Screen Ratio: 7.83% Find-a-Fur: Argoman, 1967 (All times are approximate and are affected by the cut of the film.)