I just read a very interesting article about the first company–now long gone–to make vegan shoes in the 90s. They were called Zero Two’s , were marketed as a skate shoe, and had a very controversial advertising campaign–the first one said “thanks for not killing me” with a picture of a cow, and others were more graphic. They really seemed to be the first people to raise awareness that shoes come from cows (mostly). Read the rest of the very interesting article here on the blog of a line of shoes called The Vegan Collection.