49.99
vegan-friendly boots in obsidian black
These are new at modcloth today, and I think they are great. They have a very victorian look to them, which I love. Modcloth always says “vegan friendly” and though it is hard to know exactly what that means, these boots look like they are made of a canvas like material and probably have rubber soles.
Marais USA Lace Up Heel
Smooth faux Napa upper and a chunky wooden heel (it’s on mooshoes.com and they always check to make sure things are totally non leather so we can safely assume the sole is non leather too_
$110.00
Marais USA is a pretty awesome company that sells shoes online. The only boots I wore last winter were their brown Chelsea boot, which also happens to be vegan.
Chelsea boot in sienna
Chelsea Boot Sienna (also comes in black)
$120.00
Faux Nappa leather with elastic siding (also on mooshoes.com so assume non leather for reasons stated above)
Well, Marais USA has great taste and a lot of their shoes just so happen to be made without leather. They recently released the lace up heel pictured above, and I really took a liking to it.
The lace up heel reminds me of one of my other favorite fashion bloggers: Rhiannon of Liebemarlene vintage. She blogs full time and made a living of selling her vintage finds in an etsy store. She is very intellectual and loves the history of silent film and classic literature. She lives in Atlanta and a lot of her pictures are taken in spooky run down plantation houses or graveyards. She is gorgeous and looks like Zooey Deschanel but even better. She always seems to wear shoes like this, and now I want to wear them too. lol.
Rhiannon of Liebemarlene Vintage
Every pic is too good.
$68.00
Blue (featured) and black
* Polyurethane, cotton, rubber (no leather)
$58.00
Comes in Black, Red and Brown
Rubber sole
After doing the post on bags, I checked out the shoes on AE.com to see if there was anything good. Unfortunately, most everything in the shoe section is “genuine suede” (great!!), but this velvet ballet flat, from what I could gather, uses no leather since it has a rubber sole and a velvet upper.
I love velvet and this shoe reminds me of the shoes that a dog might bring an old gentleman sitting in a velvet chair–in other words, velvet slippers. I love that.
There is also a leopard print version of the shoe
Leopard Ballet Flat
Soft Microfiber Fabric
Rubber sole (I’m assuming since that’s what the velvet ballet flat was)
This reminds me of something Brigitte Bardot would wear with ankle length black pants and an over-sized shirt. Amazing how Brigitte Bardot has devoted her life to animals these days. A very cool person.
Well that finishes off my journey into the depths of AE.com seeking non leather items. What did you think?
Well, personally I like the look of old fashioned things. I have always admired old fashioned traditional leather bags. Recently I have come across some pretty awesome ones made without leather from a surprising source.
These can be found on American Eagle Oufitters, a store which I used to love but has recently really turned me off with their tacky clothes. But they have some excellent bags right now that look ideal.
AE Messenger Bag (buy here)
$24.50
Faux leather construction
This bag comes in five colors, but I am loving these very traditional brown looks. Probably because I have always wanted to wear a real leather bag like this, but never allowed myself to sport leather. I find this price extremely cheap for a bag like this.
Faux Leather
$29.50
This bag is getting mixed reviews on the site, and I always am dramatically swayed by bad reviews, but one person loved it, and I think it looks great. It also comes in brown.
“Supple Faux Leather”
This bag got great reviews, and seems pretty nice looking, though it is a little too trendy for me. But it looks very stylish, and might be excellent when being fashionable is necessary.
$29.50
“supple faux leather”
This one looks good too.
Strangely enough the other bags on AE seem to use real leather in their straps and such. Why?! But luckily these are the prettiest bags in the category marked bags.
Let me know what you think about these bags. Do you like them? Are they your style? I love comments so please introduce yourself if you find this post!
One Small Step to "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing leather"
Hello,
Well, a little about myself before I begin blogging away.
I am a vegetarian who was inspired to stop wearing leather after watching the extremely thought provoking and moving documentary I Am An Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA, which made me realize how much I agreed with PETA’s philosophy that animals are not ours to use and kill for food or fashion.
Though I had already been a vegetarian for around ten years, I guess it dawned on me that the leather industry is separate from the meat industry and that buying leather really does support an entire very tragic industry. Learn more at cowsarecool.com, a website that PETA made to educate people about the leather industry.
I found it a bit shocking that in the fashion world everyone was so concerned about wearing faux fur, but didn’t think twice about buying leather shoes.
For a long time, I had one pair of shoes because I assumed all shoes were made out of leather. One winter I wanted to go on a ski trip but couldn’t find any non leather snow boots. I felt guilty about it but I bought a pair of knock off Ugg like shoes so I could walk in the snow. There was just nothing out there for, despite what PETA says on their websites. I have been to the handful of sites that sell vegetarian shoes like mooshoes.com and vegetarianshoes.com, but I find them very unpleasant to shop at. They all seem to have extremely tacky and outdated design, tiny pictures, weird styles, no sizes in stock, and Vegetarian Shoes has to ship all the way from the UK. I usually browsed, but don’t feel like buying anything when I visit those sites. I want to wear cool shoes such as the ones people of my age are wearing (I am 24) who shop at younger, trendier stores.
I started trying to make a line of vegetarian shoes myself that would sell classic, basic, NORMAL but cool looking shoe staples that were made entirely out of non-leather, but the going proved to be very slow. It’s still going. But in the meantime, I started realizing that there were a lot of non leather options actually available in the stores and websites I liked to shop in. It was just a matter of looking closely at the materials used.
Recently, I’ve been seeing non-leather items everywhere in stores. I think at first I just dismissed these items because they looked so leather like I thought they must be actual leather. But synthetic man-made fake leathers look very real, and are sometimes indistinguishable (to me at least) from real leather.
Another added bonus is that man made leather is also cheaper. I’ve found that if I see shoes or bags for under fifty dollars there is a very good chance they will be made out of non leather.
The cons of buying fake leather items in stores is that you never know for sure if some leather is used in the shoe or bag. Modcloth.com one of my favorite sites often only mentions in their paragraph long descriptions that their items or vegan friendly or faux, but you kind of have to take it on faith. On the Urbanoutfitters website visitors to the site can tag the items as “vegan” but again I have to ask how do these customers know or know for sure?
Well, to sum up, on this blog I will be spotlighting non leather, synthetic man-made lookalike leather shoes, bags, jackets, skirts etc…for vegetarians and vegans. Also I hope to increase people’s awareness that non leather looks just as good as leather because it seems the fashion industry is only “one small step” away from making faux leather just as much of a necessity as faux fur is. I hope one day no one will wear leather and the leather industry will shut down.
If anyone browsing through the blogopshere or interwebs comes across this blog and can sympathize with these feelings and the frustrating task of keeping your beliefs alive and refusing to buy leather, I would LOVE to hear from you and connect with you in the comments section of this blog. What are your thoughts and feelings on the matter??
I hope to hear from someone soon!
Sincerely,
Victoria
My Non Leather Life 