I’m Turning Vegan. Now What About My Clothes?

In the first part of this series we looked at the plate. This one is about the wardrobe, which people usually get to second and find harder — not because the principle is different, but because the animal is easier to hide in a coat than in a casserole.

Not that the food industry is any less skilled at hiding the particular creature something was taken from. The effort it puts into building habits, into cartoon caricatures and into the styling and staging of what it sells is enormous — enough to make it hard for anyone to step outside the habit of eating meat, to question it, or even to connect a wrapped and garnished piece of an animal with where it came from. But what happens between the animal and the finished garment goes further still.

Nothing here needs doing this week. The whole point of the series is that it works best as a direction rather than a deadline. Those of us who are already vegan didn’t get here fast enough ourselves to start asking anyone else to hurry. Still, let’s see how we can help speed things along.

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Start by not throwing anything away

If you own leather boots, a wool coat or a silk scarf, putting them in a bin does not undo anything. The animal is already gone, used, exploited; the only thing the bin changes is that something new has to be made sooner. Wearing those boots until they genuinely wear out is the option that causes the least further harm, and it is also the one that costs you nothing.

Some people find they no longer want to wear what they own, and that is a legitimate feeling rather than a failure of logic. If that is you, pass the items on — sell them, donate them, give them to someone who would otherwise buy new. What matters is that they carry on being used.

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The ones you already know

The obvious animal materials, for completeness: leather, suede, nubuck, shearling and fur; wool, cashmere, mohair, angora, alpaca and camel hair; silk; down and feathers.

A couple of category habits are worth knowing, because they save you time. Suits are usually wool, so a non-wool one has to be sought out deliberately — linen, cotton, or a synthetic. Ties are still commonly silk, though convincing alternatives exist in polyester, rayon and nylon. Shoes and belts default to leather. Blouses that would once have been silk are now very often polyester or viscose.

And every one of them has an alternative, including ones made to look and feel very close to the traditional.

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The ones that hide

This is where a wardrobe catches people out, and it is almost always in the trimmings rather than the fabric.

• Buttons. Horn, bone and mother-of-pearl are used on shirts, coats and jackets.
• Patches. The badge on the back waistband of a pair of jeans is frequently leather.
• Trims. Fur on a hood, a pom-pom on a hat, a leather tab on a bag strap — often noticed only once you are home.
• Linings. Silk lives on the inside of jackets, where nobody looks.
• Small percentages. Winter coats sometimes contain only a few per cent of wool or cashmere, which puts it last in the fibre list and easy to skim past.
• Glues. Adhesives made from hide, bone or casein are still used in footwear and bags. This one is invisible, which is why the certification matters more here than anywhere else.
• Dyes. Carmine, the red made from cochineal insects, is not declared on a label — dyes rarely are. If it matters to you, this is a question for the brand rather than the tag.

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The label rule almost nobody knows

Here is the single most useful thing in this article, and it is a legal requirement rather than a courtesy.

Under EU textile labelling rules, any textile product containing non-textile parts of animal origin must carry the phrase “Contains non-textile parts of animal origin”. The European Commission’s own guidance on the rule spells out what that covers: any part made of materials such as down, feather, bone, leather, pearl or horn — even in small quantities, and however it is attached.

So the sentence exists precisely for the things that would otherwise be invisible: the horn button, the leather patch, the feather filling. If you see it, something on that garment came from an animal, even if the fibre list looks clean. It is worth learning to spot, because it does the hard part of the work for you.

“Contains non-textile parts of animal origin.” Six words that tell you what the fibre list won’t.

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How to read a shoe label

Footwear is not covered by that textile rule — it has its own system, and since it is our trade, this is the part we can be most useful about.

Shoes sold in the EU have to declare what three parts are made of — the upper, the lining and insock, and the outsole — and they usually do it with pictograms rather than words, so the same label works in every language. Each part symbol is paired with a material symbol.

The three parts every EU shoe label has to account for.

The hide shape means leather. The same shape with a diagonal line means coated leather. The woven square means textile. And the diamond means ‘other materials’.

That last one deserves a note, because it is where honesty cuts against us. Leather alternatives usually fall into ‘other materials’ — apple, cactus, microfibre and ordinary plastic all share the same diamond. The symbol tells you what a shoe is not, and nothing about what it is. For that you still have to read the description or ask.

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When there is no label at all

Two tricks, both reliable enough to use in a shop, that tell you whether a garment contains animal materials:

The first is the care instructions. Animal materials generally dislike water: wool, silk and leather tend to specify dry cleaning or careful hand washing, while most plant and synthetic fabrics can be washed with ordinary soap and water. A garment that says ‘dry clean only’ is worth a second look.

The second is simply to ask. A brand that knows what its glues are made of will tell you quickly; one that does not know will take a week and answer vaguely. Both replies are informative.

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What to replace, and in what order

A sequence rather than a project — the order that causes the least disruption:

• Wear out what you own. Nothing gets replaced before it needs replacing.
• Start with what you buy most often. For most people that is shoes and bags, which are also the categories where leather is the default and the alternatives are best developed.
• Then the seasonal buys. A winter coat or a knit is bought once every few years — the right moment to look at the fibre list properly.
• Leave the hard ones until last. Formal wear and technical outdoor gear are where non-animal options are still thinnest. Nobody sensible starts there.
• Second-hand counts. Plenty of vegans buy pre-owned wool rather than new synthetics, on the grounds that nothing further is produced. Others prefer not to wear it at all. Both positions are held in good faith, and you get to pick.

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What we make, and what it’s made of

It would be odd to write about reading labels without showing ours. Every NAE shoe is PETA-Approved Vegan, and the whole shoe is animal-free: uppers, linings, soles, insoles and the adhesives — the one part you cannot inspect yourself.

The materials, with what our suppliers document and where you can check it:

You will notice that none of the plant leathers is 100% plant. They use a polymer binder to last, and we would rather give you the percentage than a friendlier word. There is more on each one on our materials page.

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One last thing

The first part of this series made a point we would repeat here: the goal is not to be finished by a particular date. A wardrobe turns over slowly, which is a feature rather than a problem — it means the change can happen at the speed things actually wear out. If you want to make what you already own last longer in the meantime, our care guide is written for exactly that, and our Pre-Loved programme exists so that shoes can have a second owner rather than a short life.