Britain: Continued August 27, 2009

Ready for more dirt on visiting the UK? Good.

More Tips:

• Beyond Skin is based in England, so of course their fabulous shoes are easier to find there (yes, I’ve ordered some BS shoes for the store…). Their store finder is useful, but do call ahead before going anyplace out of your way,  since many smaller stores have been hit hard by the credit crunch (kind of like in the USA). Three different stores are listed in London, so take your pick.
• Vegetarian Shoes have a storefront in Brighton, where they are based. Brighton, a Victorian-era seaside resort, is a very popular veggie-friendly destination; you may wish to consider spending a couple of days there. (I’m hoping to go next time.) It’s not too far from London, so you could even make it a day trip.
• Leave your backpack at home! Some stores, museums, galleries, etc. will not allow you to bring in a backpack, they are a much easier target for pickpockets than a handbag, and no one likes being smacked in the shoulder when you turn around (a bigger problem than you might think, especially on crowded public transportation and on impossibly narrow streets). Bring a handbag instead – you can always lift or lower it out of the way.
• Do visit Edinburgh, Scotland if you have time. It’s absolutely beautiful and one of the most sophisticated cities in Europe. (Note that Fringe, the world’s biggest performing arts festival, takes place there in August and the city will be PACKED with people, but you can see some very interesting street theater.)
• While shopping in Scotland, watch out for wool. All those interesting tartan clothes? Wool, wool, and more wool. If you are comfortable with wearing salvaged, re-purposed wool (I personally am not), you can find some interesting things at stores like Joey D or Psychomoda.
• Supposedly, Scottish bartenders don’t like it when tourists order Scotch whisky with soda, so either order something else or drink it straight. (According to Barnivore, Cutty Sark and Johnnie Walker are both vegan-friendly, but not being a whisky drinker myself, I’m not sure about other brands.)
• Do take the opportunity to try all the yummy vegan foodstuffs that you can’t easily find in the US – Sheese, Cheezly, Vegi Deli veggie dogs (best I’ve ever had), etc. (Caveat: while the British do make some of the world’s best vegan cheeses, I have yet to find a good vegan butter in the UK, though there could very well be one out there that I didn’t happen to stumble upon. I had the worst Earth Balance cravings…)
• You will have a much more enjoyable trip if you don’t act like “that obnoxious American” and put off everyone you meet. Brush up on British standards of behavior, which are a bit different. The Debrett’s guides are very helpful, but I also highly recommend Rules, Brittania by Toni Summers Hargis. You will be absolutely shocked by what words and phrases can either cause confusion or offense, as well as what behaviors tolerated in the US are inexcusable to the British. Also, lower your voice. Americans talk louder than anyone else on Earth – make an effort to match the volume of your speech to that of those around you. Trust me, it makes a difference.
• Stiletto heels and ancient stone floors don’t mix. Bring at least one pair of sensible shoes. (If you must bring high heels – and I always do – wedges are easiest for walking. Just watch out for cobblestones, uneven sidewalks, fields full of sheep, and any ancient site with stone floors.)

My Trip Highlights:

• Best Museum: The V&A
• Best Castle: Edinburgh Castle
• Best Secondhand Bookstore: Barter Books, Alnwick (which reminded me of Acres of Books, but with wider aisles, brighter lighting, interesting murals, a model train running overhead, and reprints of World War II posters)
• Best Mass Transit: London Underground (I hear lots of Londoners hate it, but if I had any tattoos, one of them would be of an Underground roundel – it’s fast, easy, inexpensive, and I love the tile murals in some of the older stations)
• Best View: Train from Newcastle to Edinburgh (great views of the coastline and North Sea, though it might not be so nice when it’s raining…)
• Best Thing I Ate, Period: Chocolate and orange truffle torte with orange sauce, Mildred’s, London (it is SO good and rich and perfect…it is the second-best thing I’ve ever eaten in my entire life after the chocolate soufflé at Madeleine Bistro)
• Best Veggie Burger: Red Veg (everything is vegan except the cheese and mayo, but vegan mayo is available upon request)
• Best Vegan Buffet: 222 Veggie Vegan
• Best Veganized English Dish: Bangers and mash, Bob Trollop’s, Newcastle (I have GOT to replicate that onion gravy at home…)
• Best Veganized Scottish Dish: Veggie haggis (served on a baked potato), The Baked Potato Shop, Edinburgh (it’s really good and lacks the gross-out factor of traditional haggis, I promise! They have vegan haggis samosas, too)
• Best Vegan Cheese: Sheese (cheddar/chive and edam are my favorites)
• Best Museum Shop: Tate Modern, V&A (tie)
• Best Thing I Bought: Black-and-white wrap dress at Vivienne Westwood, London; cream-and-red Lady Dragon Heart shoes at Vivienne Westwood, Newcastle (tie)

I can’t wait to go back.

Swayed by Suede? Never! January 13, 2009

On Friday night, I got the damn suede question again. This time it was whether I’d ever carry any of Macbeth’s suede offerings. Gee, let me think about that…no.

I never cease to be amazed by how many people, veg*n or not, don’t know what certain materials actually are. I knew suede was animal skin by the time I was 11 years old, long before I decided to study fashion. (I realize there will always be a select few people who don’t recognize a vegan store when they see it, but come ON.)

With that in mind, here’s a brief lexicon of terms you may encounter when buying shoes:

Patent leather – Leather with a “patent” (shiny) finish. Some uninformed veg*ns think it’s fake leather. Trust me, it’s animal skin. (Faux leather with a patent finish is not called patent leather, so don’t let some unscrupulous merchant dupe you.)

Suede – The soft back side of leather (definitely not vegan!). Faux suede kicks real suede’s arse – not only is it cruelty-free, it requires very little upkeep and can take a beating. I had a suede coat I loved in high school, but it required more cleaning and brushing than all of the family pets combined (and still looked awful after two years).

Shearling – Sheep fur. The skin is still attached, ergo it is fur. The sheepskin industry coined the deceptive term “shearling” – it sounds a lot less cruel that way, doesn’t it? Don’t let anyone trick you into thinking this stuff is merely shorn off the sheep – especially if it’s obviously still rooted in the skin when you take the time to look closely. (Remember how many people mocked Pamela Anderson’s naïveté for not realizing her Ugg boots went above and beyond ‘not vegan’? Shearling is passé anyway, so save your money.)

“Veg-tan” or “vegetable tanned” leather – leather tanned using plant-derived materials. Not suitable for ethical vegetarians or vegans, only slightly less toxic than chrome-tanned leather, and requires an immense amount of energy to produce compared to chrome-tan leather or faux leather (the reason it fell out of favor long ago). Vegetable tanning agents aren’t *quite* as effective as chrome, so even if you’re eco-guilted into wasting money on something vegetable tanned, it’s not going to last as long as chrome-tan leather or a good fake. Every pair of vegetable-tanned leather shoes that I or my business partners have ever seen started to look like absolute crap after the wearer had worn them for 2-3 months. (Note: do NOT confuse this stuff with the “Vegetan” materials used by Vegetarian Shoes. All of VS’ materials are 100% animal-free.)

Bonjour, mes amies! September 2, 2008

It all started in the summer of 2003.

I’d been vegetarian since 2000 and vegan since New Year’s Day. I’d recently completed my degree in fashion design, so you can imagine how particular I am about everything I wear. Although I pretty much lived in a pair of vegan Doc Martens (which I still have) at the time, I had a lovely pair of black fabric Maryjanes with a 3″ block heel that I wore for nicer occasions.

Those Maryjanes served me very well – I’d bought them in 1998 to wear to the Homecoming dance – but the straps were getting ratty, and some of the nails had come a little loose. It was time for a new pair.

My family had advised me that they’d be in Orange County to pick up something from Crate & Barrel for my brother; did I want to come to South Coast Plaza with them? At the time, I only knew SCP as the huge mall I’d pass on the freeway en route to their house; I’d never been inside (design majors pretty much just work all the time, so I wasn’t in the habit of leaving Long Beach to shop). I assumed it would be a good opportunity to replace my shoes.

Was I ever wrong.

If you’ve never been, South Coast Plaza is very much a luxury lover’s mall, and most luxury consumers continue to associate shoes with buttery Italian leather. Go in the winter, and the sheer amount of exotic furs displayed in store windows may very well make your blood boil. I asked a Journeys salesgirl if they had any non-leather Maryjanes, and she had the audacity to LAUGH at me! (An incredibly stupid move on her part, given that the store manager was very close by.) So, I didn’t buy shoes that day. After a little Googling at the library (I had no internet access at home), I found a reasonably similar pair at Ipso Facto in Fullerton (one of the owners is a vegetarian, so there is a non-leather selection, though the store definitely caters to a more goth/punk crowd). They were velvet and had a lower heel, but I could look semi-dressy again.

Fast forward to October, 2005.

I’d been laid off from my job and couldn’t find anything in my field that fit my experience level (most of my college friends were in the same boat). My velvet Maryjanes needed replacing. I happened to have tickets to a concert in a city that had a vegan shoe store. So, I left early and did a little shopping before the show.

I will not name the store, but I will say that it was dark, disorganized, and featured a limited selection of styles, some of which practically made my eyes bleed. Shopping had never felt so depressing. I did leave with one pair – made by a cheapish brand that fell apart a few months later (and I’ve been railing against poorly-made shoes ever since).

I don’t know why walking down Main Street in Huntington Beach clears my head, but it does. A few days after the show, I was walking past one of the bars, wondering – why wasn’t there a good shoe store for Southern California’s many style-conscious herbivores? SoCal is a vegetarian paradise – fresh produce available all year long, no need for wool or down winter gear, and tons of veg-friendly grocery stores and restaurants. It made no sense at all.

Three steps later, it hit me. Why didn’t I do it?

Within two weeks, I was pitching the store’s concept to Shaheen Sadeghi (famous in California retail circles as the creator of The Lab and The Camp), who is now my landlord. The next seven months were a blur of renovating the store space (it had been a community art gallery with no lights, no phone, and no drywall!), ordering stock, and waiting for the store fixtures to be built. The space wasn’t ready to open when the suppliers were ready to ship, so I had everything sent to my little bachelorette pad. I had guitar straps in my closet, shoes and t-shirts in my living room, and handbags piled high in my itty-bitty kitchen (my cats did not find this amusing, and one of them began to attack every box that arrived).

Before the store opened, I was already in contact with my next-door neighbors at Native Foods, a vegan restaurant – a local artist wanted to do an animal-friendly art show (featuring veg*n artists), but Native just didn’t have enough room. Of course, I said yes.

We decided to make the show’s opening night the store’s opening night as well, and went about hanging and arranging the artwork on the walls. Book signings with some well-known veg*n authors (including Rory and Kim of Skinny Bitch fame) were even arranged. The May 4, 2006 opening of “Food Without Faces” was a smash. We even bought some of the artwork:

Untitled by Amy Thieu

Six prints by Angela del Buono

Two years and a few months later, Humanitaire (from a French word meaning “humane”, “humanitarian”, or “do-gooder” depending on the context – the “humane attire” tagline was contributed by Seven Generations singer Chris Rouse, who was my assistant until his band booked a tour) is also selling online and in a mini-store inside Native Foods Westwood, with plans to expand elsewhere in LA in the future. I’d love to have stores all the way up the West Coast, and I just might do it someday.

I am, of course, a firm believer that style and ethics should not have to be mutually exclusive. Some animal-rights organizations point out to their members that dressing conservatively for a protest (if they are not wearing costumes relevant to the occasion) suggests to passersby “I am like you; I am not necessarily a radical.” They are right about that – but why not push it a little further and show the world how stylish ethical living can be? Call me a shameless fashion worshiper (which I am anyway), but I believe style, when applied properly, has the power to help change the world.

So…who’s with me?

L.