Fashion
Vegan fashion is hot, especially when it’s cold. Wearing a big fur coat was once a statement of elegance, status, stature—everyone has a grandma who couldn’t wait to pass down her mink. But today, it’s the quickest route to being socially canceled! Despite the narrative around fur shifting drastically in recent years, the fashion industry has a long way to go in terms of taking animals fully out of the equation. Leather, feathers, cashmere, down, and other animal products are extremely common in fashion, with many individuals being wholly unaware of the pain that goes into the production of these products. However, consumers are waking up to the necessity of making ethical vegan clothing purchases.
Sustainability & less cruelty, please!
As sustainability in fashion becomes an essential consideration in the eyes of consumers, the industry is forced to reckon with the impact of animal products on the planet. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 3.8 billion bovines are raised and killed for leather annually, which requires massive amounts of land, food, and other resources to support the painful lives of the beings exploited for the industry. Wasted water, the energy to operate factories and the transport trucks, and the cruel conditions that the human workers and non-human beings are placed in make wearing animal products a lot less cute than their synthetic alternatives.
Vegetable leather for all weather!
The alternatives are beautiful, fun, and innovative. How cool does mushroom leather sound? Chemical-free, soft, waterproof, but most importantly, a sentient being wasn’t forced to suffer. If that’s not cool enough, pineapple leather. teak leaves, and hemp might be just the cure for fashion’s unhealthy habit of murdering innocent beings in the name of clothing. As high fashion begins to take notice of the consumer demand for alternatives.
Jane Unchained is here to keep you up to date on vegan fashion. We’re certainly much more comfortable when we learn to embrace our own skin.