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.
