[more] Vegan Asics Onitsuka Tiger Ultimate 81
When you’re an ethical shopper, you have to be cautious. This is true even more now in the age of e-commerce. Can you really trust some no-name vendor that says that shoes are vegan or synthetic? Will you be able to return it if they are wrong? Is it worth the trouble? This is why we ALWAYS CHECK THE TAG. Thanks to one of my trusty and diligent readers, Brad, we now know that numerous Asics Onitsuka Tiger Ultimate 81, in addition to the ones I posted earlier, are vegan. I have to admit when Brad first sent me the link to this site to Online Shoes touting every single colorway as vegan, I was a little skeptical. But I got the proof now (at least for the pair Brad bought, in Black/Birch). Thanks Brad! I am hoping that every other one is the same.
Additional vegan colorways: Black/Birch, Bright White/Amazon, Indian Yellow/Gold, Red/White, True Blue/Birch, White/Red.
Tags: Asics
5. June 2010 at 05:26
Crappy thing about living in canada is that sometimes they wont deliver those shoes here or you have to pay crazy duty on them . That’s why i get them mailed to my friends PO.Box in platsburgh . Take that Border patrol. (i’m getting the NB 587 in black , unavailable in Canada.)
5. June 2010 at 07:42
hey Hugues, that’s unfortunate you have to go through so much trouble. It’s way easier to buy stuff here, but at least you have health care!
10. June 2010 at 07:50
Thanks for the info!! I was just looking for shoes like this and ordered the white/jet black from zappos but was MAD because I missed the word synthetic and thought it was real leather. After looking at this, I rechecked the tag and yeah it is synthetic leather. I wish they’d use a different word.
Also, Asics please make more vegan versions!!
10. June 2010 at 17:28
No problem Angelina, hope we could be of some help!
12. June 2010 at 16:03
Vegan? Yes. Ethical? That’s questionable. Although Asics claims to have cleaned up their act as far as unfair labour standards go, there has been a lot of press since claiming that human rights violations and maintenance of sweatshops in other countries is still in use by the company.
If you’re vegan for ethical reasons, consider that you may be saving an animal by purchasing “synthetic leather”, but propagating sweatshop labour by supporting Asics.
Here’s an article discussing Asic’s antics surrounding “fair” labour:
http://tighthams.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/the-inconvenient-truth-about-running-shoes-people-suffer-so-we-can-excercise/
And please consider that just because a company claims to be ethical, does not make it so. Apple has innovated the laptop by making their products low-impact and wholly recyclable, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that a women recently died of exhaustion in an Apple Factory in China after being forced to work 34 straight hours.
Want great, vegan athletic shoes that are 100% ethical and fair-trade? Buy Jingas.
12. June 2010 at 17:06
Hey Nick, thanks for the thoughtful comments. I agree, there is a lot more to “buying ethical” than simply buying vegan. I recently read a book called “The Story of Stuff” and it is seriously depressing what we subject working people to in the production of our goods. I really would like to include more fair-trade products into this blog. Thanks for raising these issues, and here’s the link to Jinga.