By now, you may have heard about the toll that raising animals for food is taking on our environment.
But what about animal-derived clothing and accessories?
These inspiring fashion brands know that leather, fur, exotic skins, and other animal-derived material contribute to a multifaceted environmental crisis, so they’re making responsible choices by creating their fashionable wares with recycled, cruelty-free, and sustainable materials.
The vegan fashion revolution will continue to influence designers as they see the beautiful possibilities of recycled plastic bottles, cork, wood, industrial waste, rubber, and other materials. Mark our words: Ethical, eco-conscious fashion is the wave of the future.
Harvest & Mill
Harvest & Mill specializes in vegan clothing essentials (dye-free or dyed with natural ingredients) made of organic cotton—grown, milled, designed, and sewn exclusively in the U.S. through a transparent and carbon-neutral supply chain. Plus, the company kindly supports our vital work for animals as a PETA Business Friend.
Ccilu
Ccilu uses innovative technology to create eco-friendly shoes, recycling commonly discarded materials such as coffee grounds and plastic bottles. The company just introduced XpreSole, the first shoe to be made using recycled spent coffee grounds—five cups’ worth per pair, to be exact!
WAMA Underwear
WAMA makes underwear from hemp for its sustainability, softness, and antibacterial nature. So far, the company estimates that it’s saved 283,277 days’ worth of drinking water and 297,560 hours of LED bulb energy.
Hipsters for Sisters
This company’s chic fanny packs are handcrafted from either 100 percent organic cotton or Eco-fi, a high-quality fiber created from post-consumer recycled plastic bottles. Talk about freeing women and the planet of their baggage.
Native Shoes
Every step of the way, Native Shoes ensures that its production processes are clean and green, with its low-emission manufacturing process and recyclable-material packaging. The best part? Its products are 100 percent animal-friendly.
Insecta Shoes
Insecta uses recycled rubber and plastic bottles, vintage clothing, and vegan leather to create its eco-friendly, vegan shoes.
GnL Accessories
GnL Accessories makes fabrics for sustainable vegan accessories using natural materials such as cork, teak leaves, and cotton along with recycled materials such as plastic from used bottles to line its handbags.
ROMBAUT
ROMBAUT is the Brad Pitt of kicks. The company is noted for its lack of toxicity and animal-derived materials—and uses new material innovations made from stone, tree bark, natural rubber, cotton cellulose, and coconut fiber. Next level—we know.
In the Soulshine
This Aussie brand’s tees are made with vegan ink and in a factory in Bali where salaries are three to five times more than the average for a tailor on the island.
Della
Della makes beautiful, one-of-a-kind apparel that also supplies jobs, education, and skills training to the women and men of Hohoe, Ghana—and the company does it without harming animals.
Brave GentleMan
Materials such as recycled soda and water bottles as well as recycled polyester and cotton blends diverted from waste streams are used in this unisex clothing line.
Alabama Chanin
Alabama Chanin is a vegan-friendly lifestyle company producing well-designed and thoughtfully made goods for people and homes. It uses 100 percent organic cotton fabric—sourced sustainably from seed to fabric—along with repurposed and reclaimed materials in its designs.
Loomstate
Loomstate is a vegan-friendly brand that’s committed to using 100 percent certified organic cotton in its designs in order to keep the environment clean, its farmers healthy, and its customers comfortable.
Wawwa
Wawwa strives to make its garments climate neutral. This means that they’re made using energy only from renewable sources, avoiding excessive CO2 emissions during their production. The company is a certified social enterprise, and its clothing is 100 percent organic and certified vegan by PETA.
Doshi
Doshi was founded in order to offer smart, fashionable, and high-quality vegan products to people who have ethical, religious, or environmental beliefs that lead them to seek cruelty-free items. The company does its best to find factories that purchase recycled base material and minimize the use of chemicals and solvents in the manufacturing of its materials.
Wuxly Outerwear
When selecting fabrics, Wuxly Outerwear gravitates toward those that provide top performance and have a minimal ecological impact. Its local production limits its carbon footprint, and its commitment to reducing CO2 emissions further supports its efforts to protect wildlife. The company constantly strives to make its production, products, and packaging as green as they can be.
Beyond Skin
This luxury vegan shoe brand’s spring 2017 collection features 100 percent recycled polyurethane lining materials, and all its shoe soles are made from 70 percent recycled rubber resin.
Neuaura
This vegan company focuses on recycling the waste from its own facility. Every material that can be reused, which is about 68 percent of the total amount, goes back through the industrial process.
Westland Jewelry
All Westland jewelry is cast in 100 percent recycled metal, which comes from postconsumer products, such as already existing jewelry, electronics, and hardware. The company uses only recycled or fair-trade diamonds and gemstones, is a 100 percent vegan brand, and uses socially responsible production methods.
Olsenhaus
This clever company uses upcycled Ultrasuede made from recycled industrial waste from a television factory in Japan. As the company says, “The process takes the polyester waste from the making of the screen and creates a non-woven material that is water-resistant, crack-proof and color fast.” Genius!
Delikate Rayne
Delikate Rayne continually strives to uncover inventive, cruelty-free, and sustainable textiles and use them to create pieces that change preconceived ideas about what animal-free garments should look like. The company carefully selects and sources vegan leather that’s eco-friendly and PVC-free. It uses a sustainable PU (polyurethane), which is a much safer alternative not only for humans but also for the environment.
Pixie Mood
Pixie Mood bags include an inner liner made out of recycled water bottles, helping to prevent fish and other animals from living in polluted waters.
Bourgeois Boheme
Bourgeois Boheme ensures that all its brand-exclusive styles are ethically made—using the best innovative, eco-friendly, and vegan materials—by its handpicked artisans in Portugal.
The company continually strives to minimize its environmental footprint as much as possible while maintaining the durability, quality, comfort, and style of its footwear.
Miomojo
Miomojo’s designers continually work to improve the standard of their materials, while maintaining their commitment to remaining sustainable, cruelty-free, beautiful, and affordable. Their products are recycled, PVC-free, formaldehyde-free, cruelty-free, and 100 percent poison-free, and they use no heavy metals.
Aritzia
This online shopping marketplace focuses on eco-conscious brands that often incorporate vegan and recycled materials into their designs.
Sydney Brown
This vegan shoe brand uses recycled and sustainable uppers as well as reclaimed wooden soles. It aims to create shoes with a “‘cradle to cradle’ life cycle.
Rewilder
This brand specializes in hand-crafted purses made from salvaged materials. The purse fabrics are made from salvaged filter cloth from beer manufacturing plants, and the handles are salvaged climbing rope gathered from local gyms.
Stella McCartney
This high-end luxury brand, founded by animal rights activist Stella McCartney, describes its ethos on its website: “We use as much recycled plastic as possible. All our handbags are lined with polyester that comes from recycled plastic water bottles—we have also used a Recycled Microfiber that was made from recycled plastic water bottles.”
Gunas
The linings of Gunas purses are made from recycled polyester. The brand also incorporates upcycled upholstery fabrics, vintage materials, and recycled metals for its logo hardware.
Groceries Apparel
You can shop for clothes on this brand’s website by “ingredient” or style. Ingredients include eucalyptus, recycled cotton, recycled plastic, vegetable dye, hemp, and organic cotton. We love it.
Tokyo Bags
Tokyo Bags makes all its bags vegan with sustainable materials such as faux leather, cork, rubber, and canvas. The company uses 100% recycled paper packaging and soy-based ink to reduce its environmental impact even further.
The Dharma Store
The Dharma Store is spreading the vegan lifestyle message, one graphic tee at a time. It uses water-based and eco-friendly inks for its diverse designs, and all products ship in recyclable or fully biodegradable packaging. Can you say compassionate and comfy?
Tearojoy
Tearojoy makes stewardship of nature and consideration for future generations top priorities by creating vegan bags, wallets, and other accessories using sustainable upcycled or recycled materials such as cork, denim, and husks. It also makes vegan leather wallets with anti-theft RFID blocking technology.
Visit our How to Wear Vegan Feature to learn more about how easy it is to dress compassionately.
