Twiggy modelled its T-shirts and Linda McCartney's photographs provided its posters. Lynx, the anti-fur campaign that once caused an outcry with a chilling David Bailey commercial about blood on the catwalk, is now on the brink of bankruptcy.
The pressure group, which helped to force half of Britain's fur farmers out of business and made mink-clad women ashamed to walk the streets, faces closure following a libel case billed as a fight to the death with the fur industry. A High Court jury has decided unanimously that Lynx, in literature circulated to MPs, wrongly accused a Halifax fur farmer of running a "hell-hole" where animals were caged in dilapidated and dirty conditions.
The verdict, hailed by furriers as a rejection of criticisms that they prosper through the suffering of animals, means Lynx must pay ú40,000 in damages to the farmer and ú250,000 costs. Supporters, including Sir John Gielgud, Neil and Glenys Kinnock, and the rock singers Chrissie Hynde and Siouxsie Sioux, will be told by letter tomorrow that the group must be wound up unless the decision can be overturned. It would cost at least ú50,000 to mount an appeal and Lynx is more than ú100,000 in debt. A ú500,000 fighting fund, launched by McCartney before the 24-day libel hearing, attracted only ú10,000.
Yesterday Twiggy, the actress and former model who helped to promote Lynx's "cruelty-free" fashion shops, said she was horrified that the campaign could be silenced. "I am totally against the wearing of fur. It would be quite shocking if the collapse of Lynx allowed the fur industry to be revived," she said.
Lynx, founded in 1985 by a breakaway group of Greenpeace campaigners, enjoyed phenomenal early success in its drive to transform fur from an elegant status symbol into a "politically incorrect" badge of cruelty: within five years Harrods closed its fur department, while leading furriers called in receivers as sales fell by more than 50 per cent. Only 29 of Britain's 75 fur farmers survived the slump in demand.
As the campaign attracted support from designers such as Vivienne Westwood and Sir Hardy Amies and models who included Yasmin Le Bon and Paula Hamilton, several women were attacked in the street for wearing fur. Some even had their coats daubed with red paint.
Recently, however, the industry has vigorously rejected allegations of squalor, poor hygiene and cruelty.
The Fur Education Council, set up in 1990 to counter the claims of animal rights groups, argued that fur farms were good for the environment because their products were "natural", with animals being fed on slaughter house offal that would otherwise accumulate as waste.
Last week the increasingly acrimonious dispute came to a climax in court after Leo Sawrij, a mink farmer, brought a libel action over a 1989 Lynx report about the conditions in which 10,000 animals were allegedly kept. An RSPCA inspector gave evidence to support his case.
This weekend the Fur Education Council said the hearing had demonstrated that fur farming was humane. Mike Allan, a spokesman, denied that the council would relish Lynx's demise. "Its existence is a good sounding board for the arguments," he said.
Some supporters are still urging a last-minute attempt to keep the Lynx campaign going.
The designer Katharine Hamnett, who once created fur coats and now describes them as disgusting, said Lynx should close and start again under another name.
Peter Gabriel, the rock star, said its work must be allowed to continue: "I am very upset that they have lost the libel action. I found it extraordinary that the RSPCA should end up on the side of the mink farm."
In a statement this weekend the RSPCA said that its inspector had been subpoenaed by solicitors acting for the mink farmer and reaffirmed its general opposition to all forms of farming that cause distress or suffering to animals.
"The society strongly objects to the wearing of fur and the farming of fur," it said.
