The Year of the Mouton Coat

Mouton fur is sheepskin which has been processed to resemble beaver or seal fur. Mouton is French for "sheep". Mouton fur refers to lamb hair which has been straightened, chemically treated, and thermally set to produce a moisture repellent finish. Mouton is often dyed brown to resemble Beaver, but it is also found in many other colors. (from Wikipedia)

Back in the 1950s, mouton coats were the "in" thing. I hadn't thought about mine for several years, but it came up in a group I was scrapbooking with last week, and some of the younger ladies had never heard or it. So I had to tell them the story of the year I got my very own mouton. Here it is.

I was a junior in high school and our family was not well off, certainly not well enough off to afford all of the fads that went along with having a teenage daughter. Mother, a skilled seamstress, managed to keep me in current fashion with dresses (pants and jeans were not part of the dress code for girls in those days) by perusing the ready-to-wear and then copying their features. But a mouton coat was beyond even her considerable talents. I begged for a coat, and persuaded Mother that it could be my birthday (Dec. 18) as well as Christmas present, if I could just have my own mouton like all my friends did. After mulling it over, she agreed, and took me to shop for it in September so that I could be wearing it to the football games in the fall.

I cherished that coat--actually it was a jacket, but we used the term "coat" broadly. It was so warm, and the fur was so soft where it would brush against my face. And it was a beautiful charcoal grey color which went well with my blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. It did have a tendency to trap the cigarette smoke at the skating rink--no Febreze in those days either, so it just had to air out--but I wore that coat everywhere I went.

Christmas Eve came, and Mom was wrapping presents. She came and got my coat out of my closet to wrap, since I had agreed it was to be my Christmas. I protested that it wasn't necessary for her to wrap it up, but she insisted and took the coat to her bedroom. Christmas morning I watched my brothers open their presents and ignored the coat box under the tree. Finally, Cecil and Milton had opened all of theirs and insisted that I open mine. I reluctantly tore the paper off, knowing that the coat was inside, and finding all of this rather anti-climactic, but when I lifted the lid, the coat was not inside. Mother had been getting little odds and ends -- clothing, a new Bible--and saving them until Christmas. The surprise for me as well as my brothers made everybody's day. They even confessed that they had been feeling a little sorry for me not having anything except my coat to open.

So this story becomes more about my mother than about a mouton coat, for I would have long ago forgotten about the coat had it not been for an inventive mom who was able to do so much with so little. Not only was my mouton the warmest coat I've ever had, it was infused with a mother's love and sacrifice.