A FIRST PERSON ACCOUNT OF RUNNING A SMALL BUSINESS.

FURS are for those who want to live in the lap of luxury, whether or not they need to keep warm, which is precisely what's kept Woodland Hills Furriers in business for the past 34 years. Vatche Mekhjian began working for the shop's former owner when he was 18 and bought the store eight years ago when his boss retired. Staff reporter Shelly Garcia spoke with Mekhjian about selling fur coats in the steamy San Fernando Valley.

"Everybody needs a fur in their lifetime. My customers wear them less than people do on the East Coast, but they do have them. It's a luxury item, and if you don't have it in Southern California, it's not going to kill you, but I have customers who have six furs and I have customers that have 20 furs. It's a matter of taste.

"This store used to be twice as big. In the '80s we were very busy. Not these days. Business is slower, but we still have many customers.

"We do remodeling and repairing and cold storage and sales. We see our cold-storage customers twice a year.

"The movement to ban furs hasn't affected us at all. What affects us is fashion. In the last 10 years, fashion is very casual. Everybody wears oversized clothes, and you can't put a fur on over that. But elegance is coming back.

"I don't do much selling. I do a lot of remodeling, repairing and service work. Remodeling and repairing is about 85 percent of the business. Selling is probably affected a little bit by the animal fights activists, but if you look at the whole picture, people selling furs are selling and people who have furs are keeping them or they are spending money to keep them in cold storage. A lot of my customers were afraid to wear fur, but they weren't convinced to get rid of it.

"The current fashion style is beaver. Actually, it's knitted beaver. They slice the fur into eighth-of-an-inch strips and it becomes a big yard, and they knit it like a sweater. It started in Canada. It's like chenille, but it's very fashionable and lightweight.

"I like the business because it's challenging. It's an art. It's not like mass production. Everyone is different. Once I made mink underwear. A lady came in, she said, 'I have an old mink stole. Can you make underwear for my brother for his 60th birthday?' It cost about $150. I make pillows. I make teddy bears. In the '80s, I made leg warmers made of mink for aerobics. Years ago I made a chinchilla cape for Barbara Eden.

"We used to get a lot of celebrities, but now they're low profile. It may be politically incorrect, but they all have fur."