Fashion turned on fur. Now everyone wants it.

PETA announced in 2020 that it was ending its long-running “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign. For three decades, the ads decrying the use of animal pelts in fashion had featured nude celebrities including Christy Turlington and Pamela Anderson. But suddenly, there was less to protest: California had banned the sale and manufacture of almost all new fur, and major brands like Prada and Gucci said they’d no longer use it, a trend the industry has since followed.

Five years on, fur is back in fashion, and high-end dealers are reaping the benefits. While fur production has decreased overall since the aughts, demand for secondhand coats is on the rise. Furriers across the country are seeing renewed interest in their vintage and used stock, increasing their sales.

“In a year or two, you’ll see it on the runway again," said Daniel Wachtenheim, vice president of Los Angeles-based Wachtenheim Furs, who has worked in the business since 1984.

The trend has already hit the red carpet. At the 2024 Grammys, rapper Ice Spice wore a Baby Phat denim set embellished with fur repurposed from a vintage vest. Heading into the stadium for the Super Bowl this month, DeAndre Hopkins, a wide-receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs, went viral for wearing what he said was his late father’s mink coat.

Mink pelt production declined 28% between 2022 and 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the value of pelts fell 10% over the same period.

Meanwhile, online interest has skyrocketed. According to Trendalytics, which makes trend-forecasting software, views of TikToks about vintage coats have increased 243% over the past year, and Google searches for “vintage fur coats" have gone up 688% since January 2023, while interest in faux fur has remained nearly flat. Michael Appler, vice president of marketing for Trendalytics, said in an email that customers were responding to the look, price and uniqueness of a vintage fur. “Gen Z consumers, especially those in the fashion set, value authenticity and quality," he said. “For the fashion-savvy, buying vintage fur offers both, in addition to affordability."

Vintage fur started slinking back into fashion in early 2024, when the “mob wife aesthetic" went viral. The look required a big fur, a French manicure and animal print: think Carmela Soprano or Karen Hill in “Goodfellas." That was when Larry Cowit, the president of Madison Avenue Furs in New York, started to notice a change in his clientele looking for used furs. “I haven’t seen this many young people coming in, in 25, 30 years. We have girls coming in who are in college, 20 years old, and they want to buy something in fur."

Heading into the stadium for the Super Bowl this month, DeAndre Hopkins, a wide-receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs, went viral for wearing what he said was his late father’s mink coat.

Louisa Harwood, a homemaker in University Park, Texas, said she wore her fur casually, as one might don a puffer jacket. “I’ll wear it to Pilates or pickup or running errands," Harwood, 40, says. “The other day I was playing tennis with girlfriends and it was freezing, and we literally, all three, were wearing our furs."

Some of Harwood’s furs come from The SIL, an e-commerce site run by Natalie Bloomingdale. Bloomingdale works with remaining furriers in Southern California to sell their vintage stock on her profile. In two years, Bloomingdale has sold over 1,200 of their furs to customers across the country; she does particularly well in Texas, Colorado and the Carolinas.

“She’s cleared out a lot of our inventory, that’s for sure," said Douglas Fine, an associate at Flier Furs, which was founded in 1924. He said sales had risen over 50% in the first six months he worked with Bloomingdale, adding to the few a week he’ll sell at the Beverly Hills store.

The companies who have been around for several generations have seen fur go in and out many times. Paul Matsumoto started working in the fur industry in the 1960s, when celebrities like Doris Day and Mary Tyler Moore were speaking out against the use of animal pelts. “It was questionable if I should go into the business or not," Matsumoto said.

That changed in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was in office and the women of “Dynasty" ruled TV, swaddled in furs from Edwards-Lowell, where Matsumoto works as manager and president. The boom lasted through the ’90s, but the poor economy and prominent anti-fur activism in the 2000s dealt a near-fatal blow. “We decided to wait it out," Matsumoto said of the 2008 recession. “We thought it would be a month, perhaps a year, but the fur industry hasn’t come back since then."

At the 2024 Grammys, rapper Ice Spice wore a Baby Phat denim set embellished with fur repurposed from a vintage vest.

When the California law went into effect in 2023, Matsumoto said, “We lost probably two-thirds of our revenue." Around that time, Bloomingdale received a postcard in the mail advertising Edwards-Lowell’s “purge the vault" sale. She toured the climate-controlled storage that housed over 4,000 furs. They struck a deal: She would sell them to her customers on Instagram. The furrier would suggest a minimum price, and she would take any remaining profit.

Bloomingdale put up seven pieces on her Instagram page and sold them in “like, 10 minutes," she said. Most go for between $1,000 and $5,000, a relative steal considering a luxury faux fur coat can run up to five figures.

Soon, Bloomingdale was working with four remaining furriers in California. She describes herself as a “conduit," offering vests and ranch minks, which are common first purchases, as well as specialty pieces like a Fendi Russian broadtail cape or an ermine capelet. Edwards-Lowell’s sales of vintage furs have more than quadrupled over the past two years. “We don’t know if we could have survived on just storage, cleaning and repairs," he said. “[This] is a big cushion."

Zachary Weiss, a brand consultant in New York, owns four vintage fur coats, including a black bear coat from the late 19th century. He said buying new felt “icky" to him, but when he was at events in Aspen or St. Moritz, he saw tons of people wearing both old and new furs. “I think on the runway, it’s a virtue signaling thing that of course we don’t want to consume new fur," Weiss, 32, said. “But off the runway, it’s become a grailed item."

To PETA, all fur—old or new—is still fur. “There is a subset of people who are well-intentioned but misguided, who wear vintage fur even though they would never dream of buying new fur," said Ashley Byrne, PETA’s director of outreach communications. “They should be just as disgusted at any fur ripped off the back of an animal."

Cowit of Madison Avenue Furs said after decades of scrutiny, fur had been embraced by the public again. “Just like the actors and actresses who got people to drop furs, these influencers are getting them to wear them again," he said.

Write to Sarah Spellings at sarah.spellings@wsj.com