When I heard about this two days ago I also believed it was a joke…
Then there’s the argument that making warriors look cool wearing fur in miniature is going to make people want to wear it in real life.
Yes that’s certainly the idea.
Comics character Lucky Luke replaced his cigarette by a blade of grass 30 years ago for a similar reason.
http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
https://www.anargader.net/
