animal prints: tacky or tasteful?

I have always associated animal prints with the word tacky.  I picture a middle aged woman with a leopard top, frosted hair, doused in perfume, red talons and a red pucker reeking of booze and cigarette smoke slurring sweet nothings to the balding used car salesman at last call on a Friday night.  Yup...cliche as it is that is what I think when I hear animal prints.   Well, I had an epiphany when I posted this picture....



congress hall brown room

 I decided that if animal prints were tacky then I want my home swathed in tackiness!!  Okay.  Perhaps I am a bit overzealous.  I don't want my home doused in leopard skin just like I don't ever want to run across the aforementioned woman with the leopard blouse and red lips on a Friday night.  However, I am not afraid to use a little zebra in my home and might just do it.  I grabbed the pictures below off the internet for inspiration.  I apologize if these are your images....I am a mess when it comes to organizing my images and credits.

Are animal prints tacky or tasteful?