Mikhail's Soft Spot - Site History

Site History

June 27, 2000. An update in my own Gallery at last (`Some misunderstandings ...'). It took me quite some time so I hope it's worth your while.
DP directed my attention to a possible source of confusion: Pellicceria MC is not the same as Pellicceria MG. Also, I have to do something about the alphabetic order of the sites.
This update's best site is Rosa Nera, who would have received a !!! if they had shown some more of their collection. Have a look anyway.
- FAKE: Evolutionary Furs (n!!), Monterey (offline)
- FANS: Fur Twins (u and new address), More than coats (u!), NL Fur Fetish Foto Page (offline), Pelz Die totale ... (u!)
- FARMS AND WHOLESALE: Dagorret (n), Panda (n!), Pozzi (n!)
- FURRIERS: Eberle (n!!), Rosa Nera (n!!), Piccinini (n!), Roy (n!!)
June 22, 2000. Still catching up with the backlog, but there is some new material as well. And definitely go to the Vogue Search page, if you haven't been there already. Runner up: Leonardo.
- FANS: Furchild (!!)
- FARMS AND WHOLESALE: Kallisthenis (n!), Ofra (n!), Sebbas (n!)
- FEATHERS: The Feather Site (n!)
- FURRIERS: Leonard (u!!), P.K.Z. (u!!)
- MAGAZINES: Vogue (!!!)
- ORGANISATIONS: Deutsches Pelzverband (n), furs.com (u!!)
- VARIOUS: Fur & Fashion Frankfurt (n!), Hong Kong Fur & Fashion Fair 2000 (n!), M.F.M. (n!!), Pellesimo (n!)
- WAITING ROOM: Italstyl (n)
June 21, 2000. A large list of new sites and updates waiting. I'll try to do them in a series of smaller updates.
- FAN SECTION: Foxfox (u!!), Fur Palace (u!!), Fur World (u!!), Furlover Suzie (n!), MrMockle (u!!), NTC (u!!), Persianer (u!), Quelques fourrures envolées ... (n!!)
- FURRIER SECTION: A.M. (u), Andriana (u!!!), Hinsdale (u!!), Libonati (n!!), Pellicceria M.G..(n!!!)
- VARIOUS SECTION: Defilés de Paris (u!!), Page to Start (n!).
- WAITING ROOM: Erton (n)
May 18, 2000. Another quick one, I'm afraid, but I trust you'll enjoy yourself anyway. Sorry to everybody who have been waiting so long to see their update posted ...
- FAN SECTION: Another page about ... (u!!), Duce Girls in Fur (u!), Fur Dreamer (n!!), Fur Palace (u!!), Fur World by FN (u, !!! in you're into adult), Furamo (u!!). Furvidspix Yahoo (n!-!!, depends on your taste).
- FURRIER SECTION: Andriana (u!), Fur Outlet (!), Lazare (n!!)
April 20, 2000. A very quick update, as I'm leaving for a short holiday and I still have to pack. Meanwhile, everybody (well, not just everybody) has been working real hard to bring lots of goodies to the fur-hungry masses. Due to an overload of work at Koshenko Towers I haven't been able to keep you as up to date as I'd like, but I'm sure you have heard from Mr Mockle's and the Fur Palace updates though the Soft Spot Fashion Forum or the NTC Forum. I expect the dreadful spell over work overload will last another month and then I'll be able to ad some pictures again, clean up some loose ends and generally expand the site and the SSFF.
- FAN SECTION: FML by DP (u!!!), Fox Files (repost), Fur Palace (!!!), Furamo (u!!!), MrMockle (!!!!, by popular demand), NTC (!!!).
- ORGANISATION SECTION: Furs.com (n!!!).
March 30, 2000: some more debugging after the links flood of the last weeks, with thanks to DP. If you had trouble getting through to Bod & Christensen or Spangenberg, in the Furrier Section, try again; however, when I last checked, Spangenberg had gone offline.
- DESIGNER SECTION: Danzi (u!!!)
- FAN SECTION: Another site about ... (u!!), Furamo (u!!), NTC (u!!).
- FURRIER SECTION: Ericsson (n!!)
- ORGANISATIONS SECTION: furs.com (n!)
- SPOT ON ... GETTING IT RIGHT: Added some scanning info, and 'Cathy'.
March 23, 2000: another update, as Lynx had become rather worried about what had become of what could be the largest furrier link of the year: Greekfurs, and I don't want to stand between Lynx and a well-earned applause.
- FAKE, FAUX AND FUN: Fabulous Fakes (u!!).
- FURRIER SECTION: ABC-Furs. Greekfurs (n!!!). So there. Jean Philippe Fourrures, Tollet (n!!)
- VARIOUS SECTION: Grimaldi (n!!), Jean Philippe Fourrures (n), Revillon (n!)
March 22, 2000: mainly a small maintenance update, as DP has kindly directed my attention to some errors in a recent update. Kiszely furs was erroneously listed as Szekely furs (even when falling of my chair from sleep I'm apparently able to manage near-perfect Hungarian anagrams), `Bayer', if you have been looking for that one, should be 'Beyer' and Sheeny's Fur Palace update was only listed on this 'Welcome' page, not on the `Fans' page itself. I'm sure you've all found your way to his excellent update anyway. I've moved Birger Christensen from the C to the B, although I'm not completely sure that Birger isn't a Christian name.
Finally, I've made some additions to the WAITING ROOM (A. Da Furs, Fröhlich) and, as I don't want to send you home completely empty-handed, I've added Hong Kong Fur Factory (n!!) to the FURRIERS SECTION. I want to leave you with the news (suddenly I feel a bit like Angus Deayton) that since February 8 no less than 75 sites have been added to that section, so if you're lucky, there might be some more Hungarian anagrams in there.
March 21, 2000. Still a lot of links in the 'In' tray, but I'll keep this update small. Main news to day is a wonderful update in the Fur Palace.
- FAN SECTION: Fur Palace (u!!)
- FURRIERS SECTION: Antonovich (n!), Eagle Rock (n!), FursPlus (n!), Garbin (n!), Germann (n!), Maryfur (n!), Furland (n!!), Gioannini (n), Reiss (n!), Santagostini (n)
March 20, 2000. O.k, 50 links to go, Alice on the stereo, it's not dark and I'm not wearing sunglasses either. (I never do.) Mainly more Lynx and Elli links from the SSFF.
- FAN SECTION: Leo (page is back online)
- FURRIERS SECTION: Arcade (n), Berber (n), Blue Fox Fur (n!), Bod and Christensen (n!), Bruna (n!), Dermafur (n!), Elite (n!), Ferdissima (n!), Giancarlo (n!), Gardenia (n!!), Kalinka (n!!), Manenq (n!), Manitoba (n!), Matthiessen (n!), MC (n!!), Mersmann (n!), New York Furs (n!!), Nobel (n!), Revillon 2 (n!), Sorce (n!), Thylan Furs (n!), Tsoukas (n!), Versatile Ajamian (n!!)
March 18, 2000. A lot of time goes in updating the Furriers section these days (a daunting 70 links outstanding as I started on this update), so my stroll around the furry block is not so methodical as usual - if you have a fan site and want to be sure that an update is noticed, let me know. Meanwhile, Lynx and Elli have been very busy, and here is the new batch, with special mention for the Samantha collection; and also some notable updates in the fan section:
- FAN SECTION: Augenfeind (u!), FML by DP (u!!), Furamo (u!!)
- FURRIERS SECTION: Albrecht Furs (n!), Anastasia (n!), Ankara Kürkevi (n!!), Bayer (n!), Belka (n!), Carol Ann's House (n!), Donatelli (n), Hinsdale (n!), Intereurotrade (n!), Millennium Fur Collection (n!!), Paris Furs (n!!), Rika's (n!), Sakowitz Furs (n!), Samantha (n!!!), Sldaky (n!), Spangenberg (n!), Stanga (n!), Toschi Pellicce (n!), Tzorias (n!), Wainer (n!)
- VARIOUS SECTION: Eastrc (n), Excite Commerce (n), Mar Fashions (n!), Orylag (n!), Woods' Fur Shack (n)
March 11, 2000. The first cut of the no less than 60ish new sites and updates we thank to the determined efforts of Lynx, Elli, FK, and others. If you grow too impatient, check in at the SSFF. Also, I've adjusted the rating 'system' - it ranges from zero (uninteresting, no new material) via ! (one or two things of interest) and !! (interesting) to !!! (unexpectedly spectacular).
Here goes:
- FAKE SECTION: BMH Fashions (n), Fur Dariali (n!), Lana Collection (n)
- FAN SECTION: Beautiful Furs (u!), Fur Models Gallery (n), FML (u!!)
- FARMS AND WHOLESALE SECTION:
- FURRIERS SECTION: Fur Outlet (u!), Gerko (n!!! - numbers aren't everything), Transfurmation (u! and moved here from 'Various' section), Tu Piel (n)
- ORGANISATIONS SECTION: furs.com (n!)
February 29, 2000. Leap day update, and I'm sure you'll all leap from joy as there has been a Lynx links flood in the SSFF. I'm glad to see some of the updates are very fresh (check the date between brackets); if search engines are lagging far behind, then Lynx and other contributors are pretty adroit at getting to the new fur sites anyhow.
- DESIGNER SECTION: Bosch (n), Dainese (n!!), Nija (n), Robinson (n).
- FAN SECTION: Furamo (u!), NL Fur Fetish site (u), NTC Web member side (u!)
- FARMS AND WHOLESALE SECTION:
- FURRIERS SECTION: Andriana (new address and u), Bond Furs (n), Buhl-Frye (n), Birger Christensen (u!), Cioni 1 (description u.) and 2 (n), Green (n), Kahnert (n), Lea Furs (n!), Pappas Canada (n!), Sevaryn 2 (n!), Szekely Furs (n).
- ORGANISATIONS SECTION: furs.com (n!)
- VARIOUS SECTION: CNN (n!), D.G. Line (n and u), Furinternet.it (n), Hanlno (sic!) Leather (n)

This week's Bad Rabbit Prize goes to the web designers of David Green (`no right-clicking on this website') with a nomination for the Nija designers (Flash abuse, but the site is still under construction); I don't care what you do on your corporate intranets, but on the WWW technology should be used to help people IN, not to block them OUT.
Special mention for Pappas Furs (the one from Canada), Lea Furs and above all, Dainese. I have seen the future: it's soft, fuzzy ... and it has knock-out colours.

February 18, 2000. There are still updates coming in from furriers who updated in the January and February - people have been very busy. Several links by Lynx this time.
- FAN SECTION: Chinchilla Fur Page (n!), Furamo (u!), Furworld (u!; and moved here from the Various Section)
- FARMS AND WHOLESALE SECTION: Saga (u!)
- FURRIERS SECTION: Bestfurs (n!), Fischelis (n!), Furwear (n!!), Four Seasons Fur Co. (n), In the Mink (n!), Overland Sheepskin (u!), Sunrise (n)
- VARIOUS SECTION: Kipping (n), Lisa Infurred (n!!)
February 8, 2000. More or less a maintenance update: some sites that were still lingering in the offline section, although they were online again. Also a re-organised menu bar to the left of this - if you are using a frames-enabled browser (which must be everybody by now). If you have trouble accessing the Soft Spot Fashion Forum today (after 1000 AM Eastern Time), the boardhost site is down due to some hardware upgrade - everybody gets their share.
- FAN SECTION: Duce (n), Texas Fur Ring Page (back online).
- FURRIERS SECTION: Fur Outlet (u), Pappas (u), Paustian Pelze (u), PKZ Furs (u!), Quality Furs (u), Raphael Pellice (o)
- MAGAZINE SECTION: Pellice Moda Online (u!)
February 4, 2000. So far the Soft Spot Fashion Forum is coming along nicely, thanks everybody for your positive response! Apart from the news that NTC is back online, there is a nice triplet of links courtesy of Chris. This almost feels like birthday.
- DESIGNER SECTION: Sorbara (n!!)
- FAN SECTION: NTC (back online).
- FURRIERS SECTION: Connecticut Furs (n!!), Powder River Traders (n!)
February 2, 2000.
SOFT SPOT FASHION FORUM opened. Although the NTC Forum is still down, the SSFF is not meant as a replacement for NTC Forum, but as an addition. Go figure why it would need adding, or read my own posts at SSFF (or perhaps Furking's on NTC, as soon as it's back on).
ORGANISATION SECTION: www.furs.com (u!)
VARIOUS SECTION: Furworld (new address).

Announcement

Due to the increasing amount of junk E-mail through web-harvested addresses, I have decided to phase out my 'geocities' and `bigfoot' mail addresses. If you have been using either of these (check in your Email program), change the setting of the softspot address into

If you have trouble reading this graphic, there is a link at the bottom of this page, but you have to change this before using, as it's altered to thwart mail robots. Sorry for the inconvenience. Note: if you are using my w x s address, please keep doing so! However, if you want to pass on my mail address to somebody, use the planet one given above. Thanks in advance.

Mikhail

January 31, 2000. Only four days after the last update, and the 'to-do' list is spilling over. Some of the business updates are worthwhile - with very special mention for York Furs - but in spite the of many new arrivals, the best material currently comes from the 'amateurs'. Unfortunately some off-lines (o) too.
FAN SECTION: Fur Palace (u!), Furamo (u!), NTC (o)
FURRIERS SECTION: Annabella (u!), Anpel (n), Finefurs (n), Helas (u), Kauper (n), Kircher (n), Plappert (n), Santis (u!), Schachtmeyer (u), Schrader (u), SFP (n), Sprung (o), State Fur Salon (u), Stefano (o), Stroudsburg (u), York Furs (u!!), Zaffalon (o)
VARIOUS SECTION: Bikini Snowbunnies (u)
January 27, 2000. With Geocities back from the dead, I've tied up some loose ends of yesterday's update. Also some interesting new links and updates. Special mention for Mr Mockle (if you haven't been there already) and for the newly available Haute Couture collection of JP Gaultier on Firstview.
FAN SECTION: Barguzin Boutique (n), Fur Gallery and Vaults (n), Mr Mockle (description updated).
FURRIERS SECTION: Chilkat (n)
VARIOUS SECTION: Firstview (u)
January 26, 2000. An update that's severely hampered by problems on the Geocities (their servers serve them right, it seems - it must be their punishment for stealing everybody's website content).
FAN SECTION: Dragon's Lair (u), The Fur Palace (u), Marvel's Forum (n), Mr Mockle (n but offline already), NL Fur Fetish Gallery (u), Uzo (back and u)
FURRIERS SECTION: Carolyn Furs, Casualfurs.com (n), Derma (n), Flaire (n), Il Pavone (n), The Louis Vuitton Dealer (n)
January 15, 2000. Busy, busy, busy ...
News and updates:
DESIGNER SECTION: Miljkovitch (u)
FAKE, FAUX AND FUN SECTION: Charly Calder (n)
FAN SECTION: Beautiful Furs (u), Crazy Fur and Fun (renamed to Saturnia's Trash Movie Page), Fur Fetish NL (u), Fur Library (u), Furophiles (u), Persianer (u)
FURRIERS SECTION: Big Sky Designs (n), Chicago Fur Outlet (n), Flemington (u), Northwest International (u)
VARIOUS: Fur World (u), Yasmeen Ghauri and Furs (n), Glacier Wear (n), Russian Fur (n).
The designers steal the limelight this update: have a look at Veronique Miljkovitch' site and, at the Fake section, Charly Calder.
January 4, 2000. Back from a long and furruitful visit to Paris (Yes, I saw someone who look looked like Lynx, and she was wearing a red fox jacket, but I'm quite sure it wasn't her) and Madrid, and ye olde Inbox is full with updates (u). Here goes:
FAN SECTION: Crazy Fur and Fun (Saturnia), FML Virtual Furrier, Foxfox, Fur Twins, Furamo, NTC (all u)
FARMS AND WHOLESALE SECTION: Three Lions (n)
FURRIERS SECTION: Hicks (u), Knyagna (n), LVS (n)
ORGANISATIONS SECTION: Bontwijzer (u), furs.ru (n)
New Section:
THE WAITING ROOM: for sites without content and `currently' under construction. I'm not going to be checking these every week or so, so if any of these corpses come alive, let me know. Also updated:
LOOKING FOR IDEAS and MIKHAIL'S GALLERY
December 17 1999. Probably the last update of this year, as I'll be away for a few days soon. Merry Christmas, a good 2000 and happy browsing!
New sites (n) and updates (u):
FAKE SECTION: Laurent (u)
FAN SECTION: Fox Files, Fur B, Fur Fetish NL, Fur Palace, Furvids (all u)
FURRIER SECTION: Deux Oursons (n), Dublenki (n), Cuirs et Fourrures du Front de Seine (n)
ORGANISATION SECTION: furs.com, Hong Kong Fur Federation, Nederlandse vereniging van Fokkers van Edelpelsdieren
VARIOUS: A.M. Furs (n), Bikini Snow Bunnies (n), Dee (n), Transfurmation (u)
Special thanks to Elli and FurKing here, who have been flooding me with updates and links.
December 9 1999. New sites and updates:
FAN SECTION: Absolutely Sexy Furs, Fox Files
FURRIER SECTION: Furoutlet, Hicks, Parese, Phillip, Rosenberg-Lenhart
ORGANISATION SECTION: Kürschner-Innungen in Bayern
VARIOUS SECTION: Transfurmation
November 30, 1999. New sites and updates on the FAN (Deborah Harris Appreciation Page) and VARIOUS (Fashion Showroom, Sheepskin Warehouse; links to `Heavenly Gloves' and `Weinstein' fixed) SECTIONS.
November 27, 1999. New sites and updates in the FAN (Furvids), FURRIERS (Beauté), ORGANISATIONS (furs.com) and VARIOUS (Heavenly Gloves) SECTIONS.
November 21, 1999. Some corrections on the FURRIER SECTION (removed Dieter Pelze - not a fur site - and added the address to Rieger Pelze); thanks Pit for telling! New site in the FANS SECTION (Fur Fetish Photo Gallery).
November 17, 1999. Updates in the FAN (Absolutely sexy furs, Fur Burger, Fur Library, Furophiles, Silverfox) SECTION.
A question - anybody has a decent sized scan (or a real life copy) of this picture?

I fondly remember seeing it as a SAGA promotional picture in at least two fur shop windows as far apart as Vienna and Rhodes, years ago, and I never could get it out of my head. Recently it showed up at the SAGA site (at www.furs.com) but only at stamp size. I'd be happy to return the favour with a few of my own scans.
Just makes me wonder, by the way - what do furriers do with their old promotional material? They can't just BIN it, can they?
SOME ADVISE TO WEBMASTERS: not mentioning the 'update date' on your pages is a great way to hide that you haven't done anything with your site since ages. It's also way a great way to hide that you just did update, and miss out on the attention that you would have got otherwise. And I still love to hear about updates!

Terminally fed up with Java, especially the bits that don't work? Deeply frustrated by outlandish plug-ins that only work on the Outer-Mongolian version of Whammybrowser 4.02a but clutter up your hard disk anyway? And do you like ActiveX as much as your real life ex? Check with these people:

It's the http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/. Even if you're not as annoyed as moi and a lot of other surfers and webmasters by all the abused (and more often than not defective) technorumpus on the web, you might pick up some useful ideas for a snappy website there.

This is not about making dull, innavigable text-only webpages without pictures - perish the thought - it's about downward compatibility and common sense. Some examples:
- You can include pictures, but you use the ALT tag to tell what's on them and how big a download they are.
- You can use frames, pictures, imagemaps (shudder), buttons, VB-script or JAVA to make people jump from one place to another, but you also provide a plain text-link system to help those around with low spec browsers (and there are many more of those than you think), or the people who prefer to switch 'graphics' off for the sake of speed.

Just don't
- put essential info behind plugins or inside huge graphics.
- whack big (and animated) graphics on places where people can't avoid them.

Thanks,

Mikhail

Some of you may have been bothered by the Tripod pop-up screen; there is nothing I can do about that, I guess there has some minus point when you are on free webspace. To reduce the hassle I have two tips.
- The nag screen - I think you may call it that - will only open *one* window of itself at the time. So if you plan to do some jumping back and forth from MSS, just leave it open and it will save you lots of processor time, as it only will be opened once.
- If it doesn't open itself but just displays a very annoying Java error message (like it used to do on my PC), use the `Open in new window' option in the right click menu or `context menu' to jump to a link. This will leave the MSS window open so you won't have to reopen that as well.
Actually, this might be great time saver for NT, OS2 or everybody with Windows95, Apple. Sorry if you already knew this one.
THANKS to everyone who sent me new links, posted them or was in any other way helpful.
If you disagree with me about the review of your site, tell me. I love to give hints to improve it, gladly correct things if I am proven wrong, and I am more than happy to reconsider an opinion if you have changed your material. Just let me know. Likewise:
If you update, move or even close your site, tell me. Especially in the last case your mind might not be to it, but letting people waste download time on a dead link is a very bad way of saying 'Thanks for looking at my site'.

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