Fur is for Beautiful Animals and Scary Hookers November 25, 2009

If you give a damn about ethics, you’ve already wondered why the hell it’s no longer taboo (enough) to do something as disgusting as wearing fur. This article from Sunday’s edition of The Guardian, which includes quotes from people who profit from the sale of fur and from PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk, definitely merits reading.

(I know many you don’t care for Ms. Newkirk, and certain PETA campaigns definitely leave a bad taste in my mouth, but considering that most media outlets are struggling to attract and keep advertisers these days – and believe me, fashion magazines feature fur so much partly to keep their fur-selling advertisers happy – at least The Guardian is presenting both sides of the issue. Take that, Vogue!)

Writer Elizabeth Day even outs the fur industry’s greenwashing, referring to studies conducted by Ford Motor Company AND the University of Michigan* that indicate the significantly higher amount of energy required to produce a real fur coat (vs. synthetic), though she doesn’t quite have all of her facts straight (leather is NOT a by-product, Ms. Day…please read your own paper’s archives!).

Particularly worth noting is this quote from Newkirk:

“These designers who are given junkets to Scandinavia and are given free material – I hate to call fur a ‘material’ – I suppose they must be desperate. If you’re truly creative, you don’t design with something someone hands you. Fur has lost all its cachet. It’s yesterday. I see prostitutes in Atlantic City wearing fur.“

Which has given me a fantastic idea.

Those who wear fur (and are not in immediate danger of freezing to death if they take it off) choose to do so because they (erroneously) believe it makes them look rich and beautiful. These people are completely self-centered; they rarely, if ever, care about animal cruelty or the environment. The logical thing to do is to remove every last trace of fur’s cachet by consistently associating it with precisely the same sorts of people for whom fur-wearers do not want to be mistaken.

Say there’s a new girl in your neighborhood with a rabbit-fur jacket. Under the guise of being neighborly (and you ARE a good neighbor anyway, aren’t you?), sweetly let her know that the hookers down on Broadway Street wear fur jackets similar to hers; she might want to wear her polar-fleece coat when she goes out.

Or, say a snotty mink-wearer in front of you and your friends at Starbucks yells at the barista. You might choose to say something like this just loud enough for her to hear you:

“God, what a self-entitled slag.”

“I know! Only an overgrown spoiled brat acts that way.”

“She’s probably a hooker. Tacky coat, lower-class manners – no one respectable presents themselves that way.”

“Totally.”

Or, say a fur-wearer is holding a coffee cup and standing outside. Wouldn’t it be awfully embarrassing (for her) if several people plunked loose change into her cup, “innocently” mistaking her for a panhandler? (If she gets bitchy, ask her why she’s dressed like a homeless person if she doesn’t want people to think she actually is homeless.)***

It goes without saying that, in all of these cases, your message will be MUCH more potent if:

• You are well-dressed. Remember, tasteful understatement unless you are a fashion plate!
• You leave the message gear at home (or at least strategically drape your scarf over the “Fur Sucks” button on your messenger bag until she’s gone). It’s counterintuitive for animal-lovers, but trust me, ridiculing fur hags is much more effective if they DON’T realize your true motive. Everyone loves to write off a “freak” or “extremist”, but no one likes being shamed or snickered at by someone they assume is in the majority.
• You are reasonably well-mannered (slightly snarky is okay).
• You have strong enough acting skills to keep a completely straight face (when “mistaking” a fur-wearer for a hooker, anyway).
• If you have an upper-class accent, now’s the time to use it. (If you do not have an upper-class accent, proceed with extreme caution should you dare imitate one; they can be very difficult to get exactly right!)

Ironically, many of the really upper-class people that modern-day fur-wearers seek to emulate rarely, if ever, wear real fur anymore. At a certain level, flaunting money is irredeemably vulgar, and what screams “I’m rich, spoiled, and proud of it” more loudly than a fur coat? Fur is for tasteless nouveaux riches. Truly rich people go for tasteful understatement (case in point: when she was young, Jackie O. wore a cloth coat when mink coats were all the rage, although she certainly could have afforded fur even then).**

Is this a slightly immature idea? Maybe. But it’s definitely far less immature than selfishly and unnecessarily taking another creature’s life without a second thought.

*Note to Ford and U. Mich.: conducting the study again to evaluate how energy-efficient a good fake is these days could bring in very valuable publicity. Green is in, you know. Ditto for compassion. Just don’t let the fur industry bully you into doctoring the results – if that happens, you WILL lose all your credibility when the public finds out.

**Exception: conspicuous outrage. If you come from a well-respected, prominent, and/or notorious family, you can generally wear whatever the hell you want without hearing too many jokes about Bubble or Lady Gaga. However, this only works if you are dressing to express yourself and have a good idea of who you are. Otherwise, you’ll look like you really ARE trying to imitate Lady Gaga…and failing miserably at it.

***Please treat actual homeless people with respect – they are human beings, and many of them have untreated mental illnesses. More than 80% of young homeless people are forced to leave home, often due to abuse. True compassion extends to disadvantaged people, too, so be nice.

When Trends Cause Hypocrisy July 9, 2009

Whenever a non-vegan shoe company starts making vegan shoes, I can’t help cheering.

At the same time, part of me twitches nervously.

When non-vegan shoe companies decide to introduce vegan styles, things don’t always go smoothly. There are some common hiccups:

• Using the wrong kind of glue. I can think of two different manufacturers who initially used thin water-based glues – not surprisingly, a lot of shoes fell apart until the glue was changed. (Among vegan adhesives, rubber-based or synthetic glues are far more durable.) It is largely for this reason that, when a potential new supplier begins making vegan shoes, I now prefer to wait for at least a season to make sure they’ve had a chance to correct any glue problems that arise before considering an order.
• Using the wrong materials. I feel physically sick whenever I see a vegan shoe made with cheap, crappy materials and priced much higher than it is actually worth. (I can think of one grossly overpriced, all-vegan label that did this for at least one season, incidentally…)
• Not labeling vegan shoes explicitly. One company deliberately mislabeled fake-leather shoes as real leather – and didn’t understand why I sent them back. (They refused my request for correct labels…and don’t seem to fully understand why I have declined to work with them ever since.)
• And my biggest pet peeve: not understanding what the word “vegan” means!

Not too long ago, a very trendy ‘ethical’ shoe company came onto the market and was widely embraced for their charity work.

I will not name this company, since I have to admire all the good they’ve done; and in spite of everything, I’m still trying to find a way to work with them. But, the vegan world needs to know about this.

Because the company is socially conscious, more than a few well-meaning vegetarians and vegans naïvely assumed their canvas-upper shoes were animal-free, and snatched them up without bothering to read the labels carefully.

In actuality, it took a few years for the company to begin producing vegan shoes. The majority of their styles, regardless of the upper material, have animal skins in the soles. You read that right, ladies and gentlemen – those trendy shoes you bought two years ago and thought were vegan probably aren’t.

Recently, I have been attempting to place an order with the company. When I initially spoke with the sales rep, I explained that I run a vegan store and would therefore only be interested in vegan styles. At the time, I had no way of knowing this could prove problematic.

One of the women’s vegan styles I ordered was already sold out. No big deal, I told the rep – just tell me which vegan women’s styles are still available and I’ll order one of those. She told me they were ALL sold out, save for the other colorway I’d ordered.

And the kicker? She told me that if I didn’t order a total of four different styles they would refuse to process the order, even though the other vegan styles were all sold out, thus rendering such a thing logistically impossible for a strictly vegan store.

I told her I’d just wait another three months for the fall collection – no big deal. She then tried to convince me to order a nonvegan style to complete the order.

But wait…it gets worse. MUCH worse.

She went on to admit that several “vegan” stores had been ordering shoes they knew were not vegan because it was the only way they could get the brand at all.

She explained that the company had more orders for vegan styles than it could possibly fill, which is NOT an excuse for a business which misrepresents itself as vegan to buy and sell goods they know are not.

My business partner and I asked her why the company didn’t just make more vegan shoes than nonvegan ones (as one supplier we work with has done). Hell, why not make the entire line vegan, since no one objected to the fabric uppers? She stammered a pathetic excuse about the company being “really ethical”.

While they are certainly on stronger ethical footing than a large number of manufacturers, the fact of the matter is, their nonvegan styles still incorporate animal skins, and are therefore considered unethical by approximately 80 percent of my clientele (the other 20 percent are omnivores who just think we have really cute stuff).

I would NEVER put nonvegan wares on my shelves, no matter what the company’s claims are or how much money I could make from such a venture in this lousy economy. Yet, because the vegan styles are so hard to purchase, some desperate retailers are willing to overlook their so-called ethics and deceitfully sell nonvegan stock.

If you plan to purchase a vegan style produced by this manufacturer, my recommendation is this: contact the manufacturer directly and ask if the style you like is actually vegan. If they tell you it is not, don’t let a desperate retailer trick you into buying shoes that are not vegan.

Allowing nonvegan goods to pass as such dilutes the meaning of the word, and subtly tells manufacturers that yes, they can in fact sell animal skins to people who claim to shun them. Not only is this an appalling and slimy practice (which, I might add, blatantly disrespects religious sects that frown upon wearing animals), it allows the leather industry – which is tied tightly to the beef and dairy industries – to profit from the very same people who don’t want to give them their hard-earned money in the first place.

I can’t force other retailers to walk the walk, but my readers can rest assured that I will not give up my morals just to cash in on a trend.

I’m still going to try to work with the company for now, but I will only place an order if they can send me an all-vegan order.

In the meantime, shop carefully, people.

This. Is. Bollocks. April 17, 2009

The latest update from my sources in the UK is not good.

On March 18, I related the plight of a young mixed-race bullying victim and the school’s lazy, apathetic, racist refusal to punish the perpetrators, even though their actions resulted in the victim being hospitalized for several days and the police (finally!) getting involved.

On March 24, I revealed that the bullies filmed the incident on a cell phone, showed it to everyone, and were STILL not thrown in the slammer.

Today, I received word that the victim’s parents are seeking legal action against the school. They were told that “the school has been judged as doing everything it could to prevent the bullying and protect the boy.” Judged by whom, an undercover member of the KKK?! That school did NOTHING! The problem persisted for months. Every single incident was reported. The incident which put the victim in the hospital was filmed and shown to half the bloody school!

If the school really and truly was doing “everything” it could, the bullies would have been expelled for the first offense and sent to jail where they belong. They are DANGEROUS. They have NO respect for the lives of other human beings. One of my sources, who has a background in forensic psychology and thus understands the minds of criminals, firmly believes they should be locked up forever for the greater good of humanity.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is yet another reason why I don’t particularly like all that many people. Animals attack each other to survive. Humans who launch unprovoked attacks have something wrong with their brains.

I’ll be rooting for the victim’s family when the case goes to court…and if you care about basic human rights, so should you.

(And yes, I do know what “bollocks” means. In British English it’s commonly used colloquially, so it’s not obscene…and any way one slices it, the situation IS bollocks.)

Westwood Location Closing (But We’re Not!) March 31, 2009

Cross-posted from our Myspace blog:

Hi Everyone,

Well, after one year, our LA kiosk is closing.

Ironically, at a time when so many independent boutiques are going under, the Westwood store is NOT a victim of the economy.

As many of you already know, our Westwood kiosk is in Native Foods’ rear alcove. Native Foods now has investors who are taking the business to the next level – the chain could even go global one day. One of the changes being implemented is an expansion of Native’s own retail sales (prepared food, books, etc. – but they won’t have shoes!), and since they need the alcove space for that, we are packing up and getting out of their hair.

There have been some rumors that we are going out of business. They are NOT TRUE. (By the way, we have a pretty good idea of who is spreading the rumors, so please knock it off. Gossiping is so tacky and vulgar!) We are just closing the smaller of our two locations because Native needs the space.

We have discussed opening a full-size store in LA (or just moving the flagship), but given the cost of opening a store in such a high-rent market, we feel it would be prudent to wait until the economy is in better shape. (Of course, if any other animal-friendly businesses in LA would like to have a Humanitaire kiosk, please let us know. )

Due to varying scheduling issues, we will have to empty the shelves this Sunday, April 5. If you live in LA, this is your last to shop in-store with us without having to make the drive down to Orange County. (As LA natives, we have to wonder – why do so many Angelenos hate OC? Yes, it’s a long drive, but the traffic is so much lighter and there’s ample parking almost everywhere. )

Bottom line: get your shopping done by Sunday afternoon, ’cause that’s when we’re clearing the shelves. All unsold Westwood stock will be taken to our Costa Mesa flagship store.

Thank you all for supporting our Westwood mini-store. We hope to see you all in Costa Mesa soon!

- The Shoe Lady

Don’t Buy the Lie – Shearling Is Fur! February 20, 2009

In this On the Runway blog entry, posted earlier today, Eric Wilson brings a solid line of reasoning to the shearling debate. Shearling, if you are just now tuning in, is sheepskin with the hair still attached – to put it bluntly, sheep fur. Yet, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan, who have stated they will not use fur, both used obscene amount of sheep fur in their runway collections. Calling it “shearling” does not change the fact that it is fur, and that both of them lied.

The post goes on to state that PETA also differentiates between shearling and fur – not a smart move on their part. PETA VP Dan Mathews, it seems, favors a one-thing-at-a-time approach. Oh, please. If only it were that easy. Some designers are still using other species’ furs, despite numerous animal rights groups’ best efforts, so why not condemn sheep fur? If a few highly influential designers (such as Lauren and Karan) can be convinced to leave those poor sheep alone, demand for sheep fur will drop, and other designers will follow suit. (Not all of them will, but some of them will, and that’s a start. Trust me on this, my great-aunt designed dresses on Seventh Avenue back in the day. She shared a lot of designer wisdom with me when I decided to study fashion.)

Tolerating sheep fur but condemning other pelts isn’t just hypocritical, it’s speciesist. I’m not the biggest fan of sheep myself (pigs are cleaner and smarter), but I would never, EVER condone the use of any part of their bodies for fashion.

Whenever someone waddles into the shop wearing (eew! ick! evil!) Uggs, I want to throw up. Hello?! There is a very polite no-fur sign posted on the door. Shearling is fur. Ignoring the sign is deeply disrespectful. The least those people could do is leave those hideous boots outside. (I’ve been tempted to remind them of the dress code, but I’d rather not perpetuate the “vegan Nazi” stereotype. I already know some people who call themselves veg*n think I’m “too strict” because I won’t allow “recycled” wool or “ahimsa” silk on my shelves. Refer to the archives for the reasons why.)

Kudos to Wilson for a well-written, logically sound piece.

In other news, Italy’s fashion industry, which generates a fortune (or used to, anyway), has been hit so hard it is now asking for government help.

Rumors of Our Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated October 11, 2008

Every so often, someone will practically run into the Costa Mesa flagship store and ask if it’s true that we’re going out of business.

More than one such person told us they heard that particular doozy from a server at a certain veg*n restaurant in a neighboring town. A restaurant we have yet to patronize and never, ever will for as long as we keep hearing about this rumor. Hint hint. (You guys know who you are. It’s not cool to lie to people. Knock it off.)

Rest assured that Humanitaire is HERE TO STAY. (We could end up moving the flagship store someday – anything’s possible – so bookmark our homepage or keep reading this blog to stay on top of where we are.) At 2.5 years in business and two brick-and-mortar stores to our name (plus the online store), we have no plans to ever shut down. It’s true that one of our suppliers shut down after a single collection (ahneemähl) and No Sweat’s production troubles are well known, but there are other suppliers out there. We are just fine. Really.

Rumors have this funny way of turning out to be complete fiction, so if someone is saying something about us that sounds suspicious, unusual, or just plain weird, don’t put too much stock in it. Think back to all the trash-talking your peers did in middle school – was there any truth to that? Probably not.

BTW, don’t forget the Prop 2 parties at Native Foods tomorrow (Costa Mesa and Palm Desert locations).