by Christianna Quack
aka The Vegan Stylist

LET’S BEGIN WITH WHAT ISN’T VEGAN

Leather comes from animals, so that's clearly not a plantbased choice (animals are not always »killed for food anyway« also, the selling of the skins is not an ecologically-driven move. The huge meat-coorporations make millions of extra money with the skin-business. It makes them even richer and stronger, not more ecological).

Wool is cropped from sheep, often in very harmful ways. The workers get paid per sheep. So they try to be super quick, which can cause trauma, pain and big wounds for the sheep. Also »mulesing« is still practiced worldwide. Therefore the skin around a sheeps butt is completely cut off, because certain flies can build nests in the wool around this area.

Alpaka, Mohair and cashmere are all materials cropped or plucked from other animals, such as rabbits, little lamas and goats. We find comparable problems in their treatment. Also it was found that the cashmere goats turn whole land fields into desert, because they eat much more than the natural residents of their habitat – the camels – would do. But that's just a side note.

What's next? Silk! Why? Comes from the silkworm! And the worms are usually cooked alive in their little silk cocoons, to get that fibre for fashion purposes. Yes, there is so called peace silk (»Ahimsa« silk), where they collect the old cocoons, after the worm became butterflies. Which is already an amazing approach! But why don't we leave the worms alone and make silk out of plant derived materials such as banana leaves?

Especially in winter – let's not forget, what is stuffed inside many warm jackets. The fluffy feathers, that normally should keep geese warm. Down is ripped mostly from living birds. Three or four painful times in their life. Then they die.

Vegans also don't use mother of pearl pieces or horn buttons. Again both from animals. So let's have a look at the other page of that book:

WHAT IS VEGAN FRIENDLY IN FASHION?

Basically everything that is grown by plants. Cotton, linen, rayon. As well as materials that are derived from plants – made out of cellulose fibre. Those can be viscose, Lyocell, Modal and Tencel. They are mostly made from trees such as eucalyptus, or European eco certified wood.

Last but not least I want to highlight that, if you have the privilege to be able to do so: always go for the ECO GROWN OPTION! Because, yes – vegan plantbased fabrics might not harm animals directly, but of course they can have an effect on the environment as well! Yes, it's hard to read, but let's be honest. Everything we do, everything we buy and everything we consume has an impact on this planet! So has a vegan cotton shirt. For example: if it's not made from eco cotton, it might be sprayed with insecticides, pesticides and fungicides. Which can kill insects, other plants and make cotton harvesters sick.

Recently I was asked, if cotton is vegan, since there may be little bugs living in a cotton swab, when it's harvested. While I hope most of the bugs can escape before ending up in a cotton corporation, I have to say that if you look at it this way, nothing ever really can be vegan. Not even a stroll in nature, since you might step on insects on your way. Then we even might consider flour a non vegan product, because insects could have been killed on the fields. Or even mice, or whatever could be seeing shelter in a wheat field. We have start from a certain point and from there do our best. My best is, if I have to buy something new, to get a product from plantbased and ecological grown fibre. But I'm getting carried away....

WHAT’S UP WITH NON-PLANTBASED
BUT STILL VEGAN MATERIALS?

… AKA PLASTIC BASED MATERIAL.

They are mostly made from fossil oil, called Polyester, Polyamid, Polyurethan, Nylon and also Elastan. All of these fabrics will release plastic micro-fibres when you wash them, polluting our waterways and ocean. If you own pieces made from these I recommend to use a special washing bag (like guppy friend ) which collects the micro plastic.

A new thing that I personally have a positive approach to are materials made from ocean plastic or recycled plastic bottles. See the ECONYL puffer jacket that Noa is wearing in our vegan fashion editorial? That's exactly it. I wouldn't recommend to fill your whole wardrobe with pieces made from them (again: micro plastic in water!) But it is an alternative to the original stuff and it DOES give plastic, especially the old fisher nets from the oceans, a new value. So people might pull them out of the ocean to get money.

There is an ongoing discussion on the sustainability of certain vegan alternatives, such as vegan leather shoes. I have written a big article about that in a magazine. I came to the conclusion, that a fair produced vegan shoes is ALWAYS a good alternative. Firstly, on the philosophical side leather always causes harm to an animal (none of them wants to die, even if their killing is sometimes declared to be «humane« and they had a what humans call »a good life«. They didn't want to die and there was I point when the animal suffered extremely because they know that they will be killed). So leather is always harmful, also to humans that have to work terrible conditions for leather. Even an ecological leather skin needs a lot of treatment to be made durable. Vegetable tanned leather, sounds much too romantic to me...But after it is conserved, guess what? The shoe doesn't dissolve into air, when you throw it on your compost.

There are many ecological vegan shoes – look at the sneakers from BEFLAMBOYANT! They use high quality materials such as recycled rice husks soles, ultra comfortable 100% recycled foam, recycled PET, recycled yarn and cotton shoe laces, lining that is free of chromium VI.

What is essential (to any shoe!) is that you keep an eye on taking care of them. If you want to walk your dog in the rain, don't put on a vegan leather sneaker – get rubber boots :) Take care of your vegan shoes and they will last for a long time.