At last! Vegan Penny Loafers and a Quick Tour Through the History of Preppy Style According to ME
Hello and good afternoon,
Today I would like to share with you a type of shoe I’ve been searching for in vegan leather. A plain and simple classic penny loafer.
MaraisUSA, a very cool source for “unintentionally vegan” shoes, recently released their fall line.
Usually I love their classic styles, but I only really liked one of their shoes this time around.
Important Update: These shoes are no longer (or perhaps never were) VEGAN. Sorry for leading people astray. A commenter alerted me.
One thing that bothers me about this otherwise super cool company that makes many vegan shoes is that they just don’t make all their shoes vegan. Instead some shoes are made out of “genuine supple rich kid suede”. To me that is very off putting and disturbing. I don’t care if the skin of a baby goat is rich and supple. That is just not cool at all.
However some people are just not aware of these issues.
Anyway, these loafers are perfect for a look that I have always thought is really cool. Let’s just call it vintage prep school style.
Let me show you what I mean.
Here are some photos from Take Ivy. A hilarious book written by a Japanese reporter in the 1960s who came to Ivy League schools to report back on Ivy League style, because there was a huge trend in Japan to dress like an Ivy Leauger going on. This book was fetching astronomical prices on ebay before some publisher reissued it. Supposedly fashion insiders were hoarding copies of the book and color copying every page to give to their employees.
Great looks, no?
I believe this athletic, wholesome, ivy league look of “Take Ivy” style resurfaced years later in Abercrombie and Fitch during their golden age during the late nineties where all their clothes seemed to be reissues of vintage gym attire from this same time period of Take Ivy.
They put out a magazine called the A&F Quarterly photographed by Bruce Weber that explored and idealized this preppy college style and lifestyle. However, the magazine featured so much nudity and so many controversial articles that it was eventually shut down by angry parents groups, and the issues became collector’s items.
This magazine was so crucial to my adolescence I one day purchased the complete set on ebay for an exorbitant fee but I have not regretted it at all!
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In a way the A&F Quarterly was like the tumblr of yesteryear — full of nudity, beautiful photography, and hot people.
Some tumblrs at least.
Moving on.
This preppy “Take Ivy” style cause I believe has now been taken up by American Apparel, another notoriously controversial company.
American Apparel focuses on recreating preppy looks from the 70s, 80s, and early nineties. Like Abercrombie, this company tries to be edgy by using shockingly sexy ads, some featuring porn stars and underage girls in NSFW poses. I tried to look for ads to illustrate but amazingly found them all too NSFW. At least Abercrombie tried to be more high art with gorgeous lush photos by an amazing photographer, but AA’s style is more… raunchy, to say the least.
To each his or her own.
I recently saw a cool and more updated example of this preppy style on the newly launched Rookie Magazine, Tavi’s latest and greatest venture. photos by Petra Collins.
socks by American Apparel.
Which brings me back to loafers.
Loafers are a great way to wear knee socks, and experiment with preppy style.
Finally here are some photos from MaraisUSA’s really cool lookbook, again exemplifying Preppy style.
Let me know what you think!
Do you enjoy preppy style? Are Abercrombie and American Apparel idiotic or awesome? Would you wear penny loafers and knee socks or is it too Lolita and inappropriate for a young woman. Comment below!
I’d never heard of the A&F mag, but I would pay handsomely for Delia’s catalogs from the mid to late 90’s. They used to be sooooo cool, and now they just sell normal mall clothes. I studied every page of those catalogs…
haha yes! me too! i really want to buy a complete set on ebay now. i used to call up my friend on the phone and we’d go through it page by page. i wonder if they are collector’s items now.
The penny loafer link provided says In the description they are faux leather with a low leather stacked heel. Are you sure these shoes are 100% vegan? I’m not sure what the second part of that description means. I would like to buy them if they are 100% synthetic.
wow you’re absolutely right. I actually bought those and don’t remember the heel having leather in it, maybe they did a second run and changed the composition of the heel? Or maybe I just overlooked it, I don’t know. THank you so much for alerting me, and I will take that link down. I eventually found some cool loafers from modcloth which are totally non leather which I wear literally every day. Loafers are great, just definitely not these. Thanks again for the comment!!!!
Of course! I guess the search continues for non-leather penny loafers! Hopefully one of the vegan companies will come out with some soon. In the meantime-I’ll survive fine without them. :)