Anne Cassatt of Northport doesn’t consider herself a fur person.

So when she inherited a trio of coats from her mom, Cassatt wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. She knew she never would wear them, but she didn’t want to throw them away, either.

Enter Greg Tinder of Tsarevich Furs in Northport. Tinder, a master furrier, had a few ideas. One of the furs wasn’t worth saving. Tinder cut off the long coat, sheared the bottom half and recycled it into a pair of vests. He turned the blond mink into a jointed teddy bear for Cassatt’s sister-in-law. Some of what’s left may be used to upholster a pillow or a footstool. The rest will become cuffs and a collar, which Cassatt may sew onto a sweater that caught her eye at Renys.

She grew up in a family that never wasted anything, and the fact that she and her sister are using “every little bit” makes her happy.

“Mother is looking down from the great cocktail party in the sky saying, ‘Good, Anne, that looks good,'” Cassatt said recently, laughing.

Making garments look good has been Tinder’s specialty since he was 16, when he started designing custom clothing. At Iowa State, he majored in interior architecture with a minor in apparel design and pattern making. As a student, he founded a couture business, and his wedding dresses were a big hit.

His first foray into fur came after he graduated, when he worked in the fur salon of Saks Fifth Avenue in Chicago. It was love, and he spent the next decade learning intricacies of the craft, from sewing to selecting furs. In 1995, he founded The Imperial Bear Factory, a line of high-end teddy bears made of sable, mink, fox and beaver, which attracted plenty of attention, but after a few hundred bears, he started to get bored.

“My first passion is custom,” Tinder said in the living room of the Northport home he shares with his partner in life and business, Seth Thayer. “Everything ends up being one-of-a-kind and different.”

When Thayer met Tinder, he was floored by the quality of his work.

“I look at Greg and what he does in craftsmanship – and part of my background is looking at craftsmanship – and I was in awe of what he could do,” said Thayer, an art consultant and author who earned his master’s degree in decorative arts from Parsons School of Design in New York.

As Tinder’s reputation grew, the need to live in Chicago diminished. Thayer wanted to return to the East Coast, and his familiarity with Maine (he went to Colby as an undergrad) lured him back. They scoured the coastline and settled down 21/2 years ago in a cottage with sweeping views that they’ve dubbed “Tree Therapy.”

“We were looking for a house that spoke to me and spoke to Greg and here we are,” Thayer said.

It had enough room on the second floor for a studio, which Tinder uses as his base of operations. Chic, colorful coats, tunics, and even a reversible rabbit-fur dress hang on a rack that takes up the better part of one wall. Fur samples, swatches dyed in every color of the spectrum, and sketches take up a corner of Tinder’s worktable.

“I try to do things that are different but are wearable. … These are the things I like to do most,” Tinder said. “There are different shearing and dyeing techniques that make it more appealing to a younger customer.”

During a recent visit, Shanti Parsons, a friend of the pair who models their wares during trunk shows, tried on a short, black jacket with interchangeable Mongolian lamb collar and cuffs. Next up was a lush, reversible polka-dot bolero jacket. Then Parsons modeled a work in progress, a fisher confection that Tinder calls “the coat of a lifetime.”

Though he caters to women and men who want contemporary fur garments, his work is “all over the board.” He makes luxurious fur blankets lined with gorgeous fabrics. Among his unique creations is a hot-pink, curly Mongolian lamb wall hanging commissioned by an interior decorator for a “mod” pad in New York.

“You name it, I do it,” Tinder said. “We’ve done some really unusual things.”

When an interior-design client mentioned a mink she hardly ever wore, Judy McKeever of Margo Moore Interiors in Camden knew what to do. She called Tinder, who turned the underused coat into a soft, whimsical “bearskin” rug that now sits on a bedroom floor.

“It was absolutely sensational,” McKeever said. “She absolutely loved it.”

McKeever, on the other hand, instantly fell in love with Tinder’s teddy bear purse – she bought it the first time he visited Margo Moore. The piece put him in the national spotlight when it made the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times in 2001.

“I was one of the lucky few who bought one,” McKeever said.

Moving to Maine has proved a boon to business. More than half of Tsarevich’s clientele is local – a pleasant surprise. Their annual winter trunk shows, which were Thayer’s brainchild, have attracted a whole new flock of customers.

“I was trying to talk him out of it,” Tinder said, laughing. “I thought, no one around here is going to want this.”

Tinder was wrong. Their first trunk show, held at their home, generated more than $10,000 in sales and a buzz around midcoast Maine. In general, the locals don’t want anything ostentatious – shearling and sheared fur are popular – but they do want fur. He attributes this to the state’s rich tradition of hunting, fishing and trapping, coupled with the need to stay warm in winter.

“Mainers in general are big fur people,” Tinder said.

For information on Tsarevich Furs, call 338-0626, visit www.tsarevich.com, or e-mail info@tsarevich.com. Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 or kandresen@bangordailynews.net.