where to find vegan shoes

A Vegan Cambridge Satchel, Vegan Shoes, and Finnish Bloggers

Hello everyone,

Have you ever seen those cool cambridge satchels from the Cambridge Satchel Company and wished for a vegan version?

I found one at this interesting UK website called Freerangers through this nice vegan blog veganshoeaddict.  The satchels are totally vegan and come in red with blue trim, blue with red trim, and classic brown.

Most Popular Product.. Our Satchel!

I also really liked this knapsack, available in their “bag” section, delightfully called the “conker rucksack“. Conkers are what English people call Horse Chestnuts and they dry them out and kids play a game with them. I read about this first in Roald Dahl’s book My Year, and references to this charming game can often be found in British children’s literature.

conkers

Conker Rucksack

This website also has a very unique and cool selection of colorful, handmade looking boots and shoes. This is a British company but for around $20 shipping, they will ship to the US.

Check it out:

Brogue Boot

brogue boot

Ruthie Boot

ruthie boot

Brook Sandal

brook sandal

Pippa Sandal

pippa sandal 

This last sandal reminds me of a shoe that if you are gorgeous and styling, will look super cool on you, but if slightly less than stylish will look quite frumpy.

all these shoes come in a variety of unique colors, which sadly, the website does not picture.

All these shoes remind me of something I find fascinating– the personal style of Finnish bloggers.

Somehow I began following many Finnish blogs online. These blogs are amazing. They contain some of the most beautiful photography I’ve ever seen.

Now to lump all of them together and generalize — the women who write these blogs live simple lives as photographers or artists (from what I can tell, since their blogs are usually all in Finnish) in quiet cities and villages in Finland. They have small blond children who they take out into nature daily, to forage for mushrooms, swim in ponds, run through tall grasses with their dogs, bathe in steel tubs by the fire, etc…

They eat dark brown bread and sew all their kids clothes. They take a lot of photos of nature –the sun setting on the magical finnish forests, the moon in the evening, the cats sleeping in the sunlight.

They seem to wear simple, handmade colorful clothes that they make look incredibly stylish, and I could really see them wearing some of these shoes!

The best way to get to know them is to look through the pictures on their blog…I wish i could repost all their photos, but here is a taste.

Liviia, one of the coolest bloggers ever.

Chocolate circus: 

puhti

manteli: 

Have fun exploring these blogs if you so choose and I’d love to know what you think!

 

Once and For All, Are Converse Vegan?


Google the phrase “are converse vegan” and you will find a debate raging. There are many different ideas flying around out there.

I decided to attempt to resolve the controversy once and for all by writing to Converse and asking.

Their response:

Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, we do not have any products that are certain to be Vegan-friendly. While the majority of our materials are animal-by-product free, the glue in our products can sometimes contain some animal by-products. So, it is not possible for us to advertise our products as being truly Vegan.

We apologize if this prevents you from being able to wear our product. We certainly hope it does not because there is nothing in the world like a pair of Converse shoes!

If we can assist you further, please let us know.

Jessica
Converse.Com
Customer Service

I found this odd however, because 1. it seemed kind of wishy washy…

“the glue can sometimes contain animal by- products” ?

If you remember my post “do shoes have animal based glues in them?”, my conclusion was “not anymore”. Was this wrong?

So I replied:

Hi Jessica,

Thanks for the response! I really appreciate it.
Do you have any idea what kind of animal by products are in the glue? I have done some internet research on the topic of animal glues and read some articles which say most glue nowadays is animal free, so I would be quite interested to know specifically what exactly animal by products in the glue means!
This would really be going above and beyond but I believe it would clear up a lot of controversy on the internet about whether converse are truly vegan friendly. If you google this topic there is a lot of contradictory information out there, so this would be MUCH appreciated!
Thank You!
I have not yet received a response yet…but I will certainly keep you updated if I do.
My conclusion on this matter:
Converse contain no leather products so in this respect they are vegan….
But if you want to get really technical…the glue may sometimes contain animal by products
The meaning of this needs further clarification, which I hope I will get from Converse.
Now you may ask why do I want to wear converse?
Well these are cool shoes…
iconic American shoes since the 1950s.
Let’s delve deep and pick up some inspiration through google images:
Actresses wear them. Check out K-Stew on the Red Carpet in them.
Musicians wear them. Check out The Strokes in them:
Former model/ TV Personalities wear them….Check out Alexa Chung:
Current models wear them. Check out Jessica Stam wearing them with socks:
Famous bloggers wear them, like Krystal Simpson:
And boys look really cool in them. So they are a great vegan shoe for boys…if you are down with the glue….
Thoughts?