Vegan Shoes
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The Hunt for Vegetarian Shoes:by John - maison-de-stuff.net
My shoes are nearly worn out, and I need a new pair. Recently, I've had a couple of conversations where non-vegetarians have gone with the old "aaahhhhh but you're wearing leather shoes" argument, which, in short translates as, actually I'm not trying to care at all, and secretly I recognise I'm a really shit person because of that, but it's fine because I can potentially pinpoint a small misgiving in someone who is really making an effort. (Read the previous sentence with a slight hint of irony, I'm not quite that despising of meat eaters... yet). In fact, I had a feeling my current pair of shoes are actually fake leather, but, as part of the generally wearing out process, any form of labelling that may have previously been there seems to have either fallen off (or perhaps rubbed off), so I'm a little unsure. Still, now is a good time, I thought, to get it sorted out properly and go and buy some certified bona fide vegetarian shoes.
You'd have thought, with such admirable intentions, and a reasonably flexible budget, this would have been simple. Well, not so. Yesterday I happened to be in Reading (it's a shitty regional town, as Sean Hughes would put it, near London in the UK, for anyone not from these shores), so I thought I'd pop into the town centre and take a look around. I visited just about every shop in the Oracle that sold men's shoes, and in each one asked an assistant if there were any shoes (the sort you'd wear to work) not made of leather. It seemed an amazingly unusual request for all of them, and, surprisingly not a single shop could present me with even one pair of shoes that they knew for sure to be devoid of leather. One shop did point out they had some shoes for women that weren't leather. Thanks for that.
Am I really the only man in England that doesn't want to have dead bits of cow strapped to his feet? Leather has become a really big issue for me. I remember a while back there being a campaign involving lots of naked supermodels all going on about how they'd rather be seen naked than wear fur, however, most of them could then be seen within the same week modelling leather. What the hell? So we're basically dealing with, if it's cute, it is totally abhorrent to kill it and wear it, but if it isn't its fair game. This added to the fact that supermodels were involved, whose very existence I despise anyway, got me quite annoyed. Well, for me, at any rate, it has to stop. No more leather.
So back to my shoes. I'm in London as I write, and I took a quick look around on the web for "vegetarian shoe shops" - to be honest I'm not sure I like the phrase "vegetarian shoes" at all, but currently I don't have a better name for it. Well, maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I hardly found a mass of shops selling leather-free shoes in the capital of a country with one of the highest proportion of vegetarians in the world (or so I'm led to believe). What I did find, was a very nice website for a shop in Brighton (vegetarian-shoes.co.uk), allowing me to buy online. I could see all of the shoes and everything, but, and call me a traditionalist, isn't it a bit odd mail ordering your shoes? I'm never sure exactly what size I am, and all shoes are slightly different anyway. So, basically, it is looking increasingly like I'm going to have to go all the way to Brighton just to buy myself a pair of shoes. Not entirely regrettable, Brighton is a nice place after all, full of forward looking people (unlike Reading), and maybe I can turn it into a nice day out. Still though, doesn't it just seem a little rediculous? Supermarkets and restaurants are really cashing in on vegetarianism now, they understand well that the little green v is a great selling point - it is a simple fact, there are needs in the market they would be utterly stupid not to address. Why is the footwear industry so far behind?
© John - www.maison-de-stuff.net
