Furs on Film – Anna Karenina (2012)

Meet Anna (Keira Knightley) Russian aristocrat and socialite who spends a lot of time in Act 1 on trains and a very brief amount of time in the final act under them. Fortunately, she also spends a lot of Act 1 wearing crystal fox fur.

She’s chatting up Countess Vronskaya (Olivia Williams). The Countess is wearing some fox trim of her own, eerily reminiscent of the fur worn by the 1977 BBC version of Anna on the train.

Let’s see that wide shot of ladies in fox. I admit my first instinct was to call Anna’s fur silver fox, but I looked up the costumes and the color is a lot more obvious when not lit “cinematically.”

Here we get a solid shot of the crystal fox collar Anna wears. Off to the right side is the “plot,” the Countess’s son and the future subject of Anna’s marital infidelity.

We briefly get a good shot of the Countess’ entire fox-trimmed outfit and muff at the station.

Later, on a different train ride, Anna remembers her outfit includes a matching crystal fox hat. Bit disappointing this was left out before, but we get some good closeups of Keira Knightley’s face haloed in fur. This is quite agreeable indeed.

Later we get a little indoor sledding. Anna wears the black fox stole we will see more of later. Sadly, the matching hat never makes it further into the film.

She is joined by Dolly (Kelly Macdonald) in a dyed fox wrap; we will see a bit more soon.

In its only appearance in the film, Anna wears a different crystal fox-trimmed outfit.

The next big-ticket item is this fur-trimmed cape. It may be sable, it may be a black fox, it’s very nice either way.

Dolly appears with Vronsky while in the powder blue-dyed fox seen earlier that, I suspect, lacks a little period authenticity. Vronsky, by the way, is not, and I can assure you, Timothée Chalamet. Go ahead, check. I’ll wait.

We revisit the cape in a slightly more extended sequence with better closeups.

Momma Vronskaya returns in this mink hat and collar to berate not-Timothée Chalamet for being a dumbass.

Next, we have Kitty (Alicia Vikander) out in the countryside and agreeably overdressed for it in this fox-trimmed coat, hat, and muff combo. 

This outfit gets some decent screen time. I wish the entire thing were made of fox, but that’s being greedy.

Up next is this fox or sable-trimmed coat. I wish I could say it was filmed well, but like every black fur, it was chosen to be shot in the dimmest light possible.

To make things more confusing, the black fox stole returns later, also deeply in the dark.

Finally, rounding things out is a brief appearance by this white fox stole. She literally walks across a room and takes it off. It was rather disappointing that it wasn’t around for longer, but it certainly is an excellent way to end the film.