It is one of the most common questions we get asked. And for good reason — durability is not a small thing. Shoes are an investment. Nobody wants to buy a pair that falls apart after six months.
So let us answer it honestly. Not as a marketing exercise. As a brand that has been making vegan shoes in Portugal since 2008, with customers who have been wearing our shoes for over ten years.
The short answer: yes. But it depends on two things.
Durability in footwear is not determined by whether a shoe is vegan or not. It is determined by two things — the quality of the materials used, and the quality of the construction. A poorly made leather shoe will fail just as quickly as a poorly made vegan shoe. And a well-made vegan shoe, built with the right materials in the right places, will last just as long as its leather equivalent.
That distinction matters. Because the conversation around vegan shoe durability is often too simple.
Before we talk about durability — let's talk about where leather comes from
When we compare vegan shoes to leather shoes, most articles go straight to performance. Flex cycles, abrasion resistance, how many years before cracking. We think that misses something important.
Leather begins at a slaughterhouse and ends in a tannery. That is not an opinion — it is what the material is. An animal is killed, its hide is processed with up to 170 different chemicals including chromium and formaldehyde, and the result is a material that many people buy without ever thinking about that journey.
We are not here to tell you what to think. But we do believe you deserve to know the full picture when you are making a choice about what to buy.
Because here is what we have come to understand after eighteen years: the question of durability cannot be separated from the question of what we are willing to accept in order to get it. A leather shoe that lasts twenty years still started with an animal that did not choose to be there. A vegan shoe made from pineapple leaf fibre started with agricultural waste that would otherwise be discarded.
Not all vegan materials are the same
This is something we have learned through direct experience — through testing, through production, and through eighteen years of customer feedback.
There are materials we use that perform exceptionally well over time. Our Ecopure microfibre has an abrasion resistance of 100,000 cycles in testing. That translates to years of regular daily wear without cracking or peeling. Customers who have been with us since our early collections are still wearing those shoes.
Then there are materials like Piñatex — made from pineapple leaf fibres — which we genuinely love and believe in. But experience has taught us that it is not right for every application. Piñatex works beautifully in certain styles and certain parts of a shoe. In areas of high flex or heavy abrasion — the toe box of a boot, the heel counter of a heavily worn everyday trainer — it can show wear more quickly than other materials. So we use it where it performs. We do not use it everywhere just because it is plant-based. That would be doing our customers a disservice.
This is what experience actually looks like. Not just knowing which materials exist — but knowing where each one belongs.
Construction matters as much as materials
Here is something the durability conversation almost always ignores: a shoe is not just its upper material. It is a system of components — upper, lining, insole, outsole, adhesives, stitching — and the durability of the whole depends on how well all of those components work together.
We make every NAE shoe in a factory in northern Portugal, 57 kilometres from Porto, with craftspeople who have been making shoes for decades. Many of them are second or third generation shoemakers. That level of experience matters enormously — in the stitching that holds under stress, in the bonding between sole and upper, in the finishing details that prevent early wear.
A well-constructed shoe with a quality vegan upper will outlast a poorly constructed shoe with a premium leather upper. Construction is not a footnote. It is often the deciding factor.
What our longest-standing customers tell us
We have customers who bought their first pair of NAE shoes in the early years of the brand and are still buying from us today. Some of them are still wearing pairs from years ago. They tell us consistently: the shoes hold their shape, the materials do not crack or peel, and the soles last.
That is not luck. It is the result of choosing materials carefully, knowing where each one works, and building with craftsmanship that only comes from experience.
The honest conclusion
Are vegan shoes as durable as leather? Yes — when they are made well, with the right materials in the right places, and built with genuine construction quality.
But durability is only one part of the question. The other part is what you are comfortable with when you look at where your shoes come from.
For us, that has always been clear. We started NAE in 2008 because we believed it was possible to make beautiful, durable shoes without an animal paying the price. Eighteen years and thousands of customers later, we know it is.