Natalie Portman on Target

Posted by Sarah van Schagen at 9:29 AM on 26 Feb 2008

Read more about: celebrity | fashion | vegetarianism and veganism | green products

In talking about her new vegan shoe line, Natalie Portman reveals she often shops at Target to find vegan shoes:

"Basically, I [launched the line] out of a lack of choice. Stella McCartney does great shoes, but they're expensive and very fashiony. I wanted a mary-jane shoe without leather. I've been getting stuff from Target, which is de facto vegan because it's so cheap. But I did need some shoes that weren't made of canvas or plastic."

Apparently, the cheaper the shoe, the more likely to be vegan? Is this just an easy way out (not leather = vegan?), or have others found that Target is a good place for legit vegan shoes/other items?

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Definitely a correlation, though, unfortunately...

Almost all of Payless' shoes are vegan. Target has some vegan shoes, though they still deal in quite a bit of cow skin. HOWEVER, the down side is that the process used to make the pleather (vinylized canvas mostly) that a lot of these cheapo companies use is horrifyingly bad for the environment AND most of them come from mega-factories in China with questionable human rights and even more questionable environmental impact in general, PVC production aside. There are a couple of higher-end companies that claim they use worker-friendly and less-environmentally-impacting Chinese factories (Ragazzi Vegan
http://www.ragazzivegan.com/
for example). How much you decide to believe their marketing is up to you though.

I messed my foot up pretty badly in a wreck while wearing environmentally sensitive and vegan Blackspot Unswooshers
https:/secure.adbusters.org/orders/blackspot.v2
and decided that I needed some serious-ass motorcycle boots, but REFUSED to go for any form of cow skin (some claim that used cow skin is technically vegan and THE most environmentally friendly option, but I just couldn't bring myself to wear it if I bought it). So, anyway, I broke down and bought some of the Payless $25 workboots but I still have pangs of guilt about it...most durable and comfortable boots I have ever owned though, oddly enough...

Otherwise I'm all canvas, all the time, gimme some MacBeths
http://www.macbethfootwear.com/
or some NoSweats
http://nosweatapparel.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&am ...
any day over any of the others. I'm a dude of course tho, and don't go in for that fancy stuff mostly. There is always the stuff on AlternativeOutfitters
http://www.alternativeoutfitters.com/
or MooShoes
http://www.mooshoes.com/
too though, which have some great options I think, my wife always drools over them and has bought a few pairs. Though, I think ALL pleather is pretty much deadly to the environment.

by That One Guy at 12:29 PM on 26 Feb 2008

get me started and I willnae stop yammering

Oh, and for actual athletic trainers, New Balance makes a ton of vegan options. Finally, Zappos.com used to have a veggie shoe search option. Though it looks like they've rebranded that as "eco-friendly" it does seem to still have a lot of options:
http://www.zappos.com/ecofriendly.htm?ref=sidenav
however, there are VERY few dressy or even "cute" casual shoes for the ladies in there...

by That One Guy at 12:39 PM on 26 Feb 2008

New balance?

Good! I need new running shoes.

The secret weapon in this eco revolution is trend setting beautiful people. Go Natalie! Recruit your beautiful friends.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 12:42 PM on 26 Feb 2008

hurray beautiful friends!

Thanks, ThatOneGuy, for the overview. MooShoes are quite out of my price range (if I pay more than $50 for a pair of shoes, I go into a depression; usually I resort to Land's End or LLBean, for under $30), but I look forward to seeing Macbeth's new catalogue, when they get up and running.

It is true that vegan or non-leather footwear is often made of ungodly yucky stuff. Certainly, vinyly imitation leather substances should not be tolerated too often -- on the road last summer, in desperate straits, in some Footlocker in a mall in Missouri, I ended up with a casual pair with some very odd faux-leather trim, which now at home are banished to the back of the closet.

Really, canvas (which I assume is totally vegetable-based) ought to be the way to go for most footwear needs. And for foot security, we should do more to elevate the importance and value of sock artisanry.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 10:05 PM on 26 Feb 2008

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