Andre Furs has been a family-owned business for 4 generations. It is now owned by Heather and John Hurula, the daughter and son-in-law of Brian Anderson and Francis Joy Anderson.
Andre Furs started in 1960 when Andre Anderson opened Andre Furs in Whitefish Bay, WI. Since then the business has catered to many thousands of customers and has established itself as the business to work with to buy, customize, repair, and clean fur and leather garments.
We have a lot of pride in this business, and a lot of love for our family members who have made Andre Furs what it is today. To learn more about how our business started, please read the "Our History" section below, which highlights an article from the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1977 that details Andre's and Brian's father/son relationship and their vision for Andre Furs.
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We sincerely thank you for taking the time to learn more about us.
About Us
Our History
THEY ARE IN the business of selling luxury and the market is pleasantly brisk, thank you. Within the next five years, in fact, they are aiming for a $1 million volume in retail sales.
The co-partners in Andre Furs have ample reason to anticipate they will achieve the goal. They work well together. Andre and Brian Anderson are father and son, and their business association — which they believe is unique in the retail fur market in this area — has thrived to an impressive degree.
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The senior Anderson, who has spent 42 of his 68 years in the fur business, opened his elegant Whitefish Bay salon 16 years ago. Four years later, Brian joined his father in the firm. Since then, according to the younger partner, the store has been expanded three times and business has tripled.
Brian does not take sole credit for that fortuitous growth; he hastened to add, “I respect my father enormously. I am a stylist, but he is a designer. Each of us says we have the best partner in the field.”
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PARALLEL AFFECTION and regard is obvious in Andre Anderson’s thinking.
“I’m fortunate to have a son who likes the business. He has worked up just beautifully… I never tell him what to do. Whether a customer talks to me or to Brian, it’s the same thing. She’ll get the same answer from both of us,” he said.
A career in the fur fashion field is a far cry from Brian’s academic training. He graduated from Northwestern University where he received his degree in radio and television. He worked as a news announcer in Chicago and as a copywriter at an Eau Claire radio station.
Two tours of duty with the army were interspersed with positions as a buyer for two Milwaukee department stores.
“I joined Dad because we both saw the good potential. I didn’t know fur, but I enjoy fashion and always have,” Brian observed. “None of my previous experience was wasted, though. It all applied — everything in business is selling.”
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HE HAD BEEN INTRODUCED to the fur business at a very young age, however. He remembers accompanying his father to various fur shops in Toronto, Canada, his birthplace, when he was just a little boy. “I was really a gofer, but every once in a while, I was allowed to sew little pieces of fur together.”
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The older Anderson, who was born in Denmark, emigrated to Saskatchewan, Canada, to join his sister who had a farm there. He had been trained as a tailor in his native country. “I was 14 years old when I started,” he remembered. “It was a six-year apprenticeship and you really learned to handle material.
In Canada, I got into a specialty shop where I did furs and ladies’ custom work,” he recalled. It was the fur aspect of the business that earned his lifelong devotion.
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“You seem to accomplish something,” Anderson explained haltingly. “You’re taking the skins, joining them with others according to the pattern… cutting in such a way to have people say: ‘How beautiful.’”
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​“It’s the most wonderful feeling when people come back,” Andre confided. And, he maintained, there is always a market for an excellent product — which, of course, includes fur.​
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Brian displayed a lush sable jacket, with a price tag of $8,500, which had been ordered by a customer from another city. “She is an invalid and Dad went to her home to fit,” he said.
​THEIR BUSINESS is not influenced by economic ups and downs, he commented. “All I can say is that people with money are not affected. Our customers have money,” the partner said simply.
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Some recent experiences bear that out. During one recent 10-day period, Brian sold two coats each to two women. In both instances, one of the chosen coats was raccoon.
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“Raccoon has always been more of a sporty fur, but now it has become a fashion item,” Andre observed. The price reflects that elevation to glory. The coats being discussed by the furriers were priced at $3,200 and $3,300.
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The salon is attracting a steadily increasing number of younger women in their 20s and 30s, Brian noted. “They seem to be going for raccoon and muskrat,” he said.
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Brian estimated an average sale at $2,500 to $3,000, but pointed out that a fine-quality mink coat would be in the $5,500 to $6,000 range. A full-length sable would cost about $25,000, he speculated. Their store doesn't stock that costly a garment, he admitted, although it could be ordered. But they do carry fur designs with price tags of up to $17,500, he said.
​THE MOTIVATION for investing a considerable amount of money in a fur or furs varies with the customer, the partners agreed. “It’s a matter of desirability,” Brian speculated. “Some women just say, ‘I always wanted one.’”
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“There is a sensuousness to fur. It is esthetically pleasing... it makes a woman feel special. The selection of different types of furs depends on how special she wants to feel,” he added with a grin.
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“There is an element of practicality from the standpoint of warmth and durability,” he hastened to add. “Good furs will last perhaps 10 or 15 years — though nobody would want to keep them that long because of style changes. A mink coat might go as long as 20 years if it is restyled after eight or nine years.”
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Now about this business of selling luxury. How do they feel?
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“Delightful,” the irrepressible Brian answered.​​
ANDRE WAS MORE thoughtful. “Yes, but there is also the matter of enjoying the business,” he said. “A car could cost as much, but this is so varied. We are never bored.
“In Canada, during the Depression, I worked 72 hours a week for $1 an hour — but still there were customers for furs.”
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That seeming inequity didn’t bother him then, and certainly not now. “Nothing comes easily,” Andre philosophized. “But you don’t just stop in the middle.”