I.

My mother, Vivian Jarrett-Irving, is the owner of two fur coats: a full-length mahogany mink and a fox that hits right below the knee. Both hang from pegs she affixed to the back wall of her bedroom closet, as if their sensual, febrile glamour were too singular to be slotted in among the racks of common clothing.

But their storage is purely sensible. “I keep them in here because it’s cooler,” she said. Kept too warm, the pelts will shed, and excessive humidity may rot the underlying skins; too cold and the hides are prone to dry out and crack. Both must be routinely brushed and shaken out. From Easter until the first cold days of winter, the coats are kept in a vault at Saks Fifth Avenue. There, for $175 per annum, the ideal temperature ( under 55 degrees Fahrenheit, 50 percent humidity) is fastidiously maintained.

We spoke at home in Chicago in January, on a night when the coats were newly home for the season. My mother was readying for bed. Her long hair was wrapped, her last cigarette of the night lit, and she was watching the evening news, waiting to hear whether the days ahead would bring snow and, with it, the opportunity to wear fur. “We grew up poor,” she said to me, though I’m plenty familiar. “We didn’t have a lot, but we always looked nice. I think black people, in general, no matter their incomes, like to look nice.”