The wait for some of you is finally over.  Doc Martens wised up and now sell vegan models of the popular 1460 8-Eye boot, and the 3-Eye Gibson shoe.   The shoes are made of “Felix Rub Off” material, which I guess is their proprietary fake leather.  Judging from the pictures they did it right, since they look high quality and emulate the finish of the regular Doc Martens.   I won’t get all sentimental about the brand, but suffice it to say that it brings back the 90′s and the grunge era.  I am too young to remember when they were big in the 80′s punk scene.

Speaking of Punk, you can get either of these shoes at Punk.com.  It’s a great site, I never even heard of it before, but they have a great selection of vegan shoes.

8 Eye Boot in black, 3 Eye Gibson Shoe in cherry or black.

1460 Vegan 8-Eye Boot, and 1461 Vegan 3-Eye Gibson also available at Zappos!

UPDATE 8/10/11: Just got word from Adidas that the lining is in fact leather.  Sorry kids.

Great to see the Adidas Samba, another classic shoe being released in canvas.  I had a little difficulty with Adidas in finding out what the stripes are made out of, and they did tell me that the stripes are in fact synthetic.  But stupid me, I didn’t word the email correctly, so they didn’t comment on the heel and the tongue.  So  I am going forewarning you all now.  I’m posting this, but only on the assumption that Adidas would not do the counter-intuitive thing and use leather on the other parts of the shoe (they do!).  Also, Zappos describes the lining as synthetic, and that seems to be the same stuff used on the heel (wrong!).  I can’t really vouch for the tongue though.  I had a pair of old Superstars before and the tongue was leather.  But these don’t look the same, it seems to be a padded tongue.

So as I cannot state with 100% certainty that these are vegan, I’m sure enough to put them here (I stand corrected).  Being such a dope shoe, I couldn’t resist.  If anyone already has a pair of these, let me know what the tag says.  I apologize in advance for anyone who may accuse me of being a hack and lacking in credibility.  But hey, I did warn you!

Available in black, blue, and red at Zappos for $60.

Den ganzen Beitrag lesen…

I think a lot of us who pay attention to this stuff are well aware of the Saucony Jazz Low Pro as a widely available retro running shoe that happens to be vegan.  It also happens to be, well, pretty boring.  Let’s be real, they look like old man shoes.

But lookey here, Saucony flipped the script with this 2011 new-and-improved Jazz Low Pro.  Like before, it’s made out of hemp and canvas.  But it’s gotten a significant style makeover.  The heel padding is totally gone, now leaving just a thin fabric backing.  I believe overall, there is much less padding, though I can’t tell 100% from the pictures.  I think they just abandoned all pretense that this shoe would be used for running.  But to me, it’s for the better.  The shape and silhouette are significantly more sleek.  And no one is running in these shoes anyway, right?

Available at Premier for $55.

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I’m pretty sure that the Vans LPE is a dead wringer for the Authentic, but I couldn’t resist.  First it was the low profile, slim shoe.  Now it’s all about the low sole.  I’m a big fan.  I think that if you don’t skateboard, you really don’t need all that grippy white gum.  You’re not going to be using it for any reason other than looking fresh, and the sole can sometimes overwhelm the look of the shoe.  Which is why I like this slight alteration of the Authentic – it’s basically the same shoe, but now the sole is proportional with the general dimensions of the shoe.

The non-leather colorways are grey chambray (always dope), black on black, black with white stitching, and pure white.

Available at Zappos.

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I had to shout out my European peeps.  The vegan scene is definitely well represented in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland… man, everywhere. I can’t believe it, but I can honestly say this is an international blog. The WWW is crazy! Thank you so much for reading, and giving me your support. Nothing is better than hearing from people from all over the place, giving me ideas and input. So cool. But anyway, onto the shoes!

Den ganzen Beitrag lesen…