I just found out about this really awesome Brazilian shoe compny called Melissa shoes. This is a great post about the company from a great vegan shoe blog, veganshoeaddict.com.  But here are some quick facts about the shoes:

1. the shoes are totally vegan because they are made completely out of recycled plastic

2. they made the original Jellie shoe

3. they come scented with a bubblegum scent.

These shoes are some of the coolest shoes I have seen in a long time. I love them.

Check out some of the fabulous types of Melissa shoes I’ve found :

Part of Vivienne Westwood’s Anglomania collection (love that name).

These remind me of an old flowered bathing cap–in a good way.

More Vegan Mary Jane Options

These gold glittered shoes remind me of my childhood Jellies.

Little prince shoes

and the most beautiful shoes of all– vegan winged Apollo sandals:

I badly want these. What do you think??

Quite gorgeous. But where to buy? Unfortunately, Melissa shoes are not available to buy on Melissa’s website, but if you google and hunt around you can find them being sold on a number of other sites and ebay.

Here are some good places to look:

Karmaloop sells a good selection here, including the Melissa Mary Janes

Other good places to look for what you want are here and zappos and amazon.

 

For some reason velvet heels have been a fantasy of mine. Whenever I see them, I think “grown ups going to the opera.”

I’m not really sure where this idea came from. Maybe it has something to do with me watching my mom dressing up and piling on the velvet in the eighties when I was young, or maybe it has something to do with my memories of the sumptuous velvet curtain in my favorite show when I was young–The Phantom of the Opera.

Indeed, these black crushed velvet heels from the vegan section of lulus.com for a mere $26.00 would make one feel at home going to any opera, and if you let your imagination wander…you might begin to feel like the beautiful young Christine Daee herself, who belonged there in the back wings. Here are some pics of L’opera Garnier in Paris to set the mood:

What an incredibly beautiful place. I can totally imagine how the romantic and profound tale of the Phantom of the Opera was inspired by this building.