Marks & Spencer launched an animal-free footwear collection for Spring (Image via: Her.ie)

The New Trend of Vegan Fashion

Kirana Chandra Mumpuni Budiana
Market & Investment
Product
Sep 01, 2019
1994
Vegan fashion becomes a trend nowadays. Mintel research shows that Germany is the global leader in the development of vegan food and drink product. German market has an increasement as much as 131% in its vegan product year-over-year. Another research by London-based retail technology company Edited shows that there’s a 75% increase for products described as ‘vegan’ in UK and 11% in U.S. The number of vegan products in France and Denmark is also increasing. Now the vegan trend is spreading to the field of fashion.

Famous retailers, such as Marks & Spencer, Zara, and New Look, are selling clothes and accessories marketed as free from cow skin and any other animal products. For example, there are vegan fur coats, jute and plastic vegan belts, as well as shoes made of tree bark, natural rubber, and coconut fibre. Mintel made a prediction that there will be an increasement in the sales of animal-free shoe collections. Shoppers of all ages said that they would buy footwear labelled "vegan". Animal welfare becomes the top reason for the shoppers to buy vegan products. Meanwhile, 42% of them consider it important.

Patsy Perry, senior lecturer in fashion marketing at the University of Manchester, said that the products labelled vegan does not always convey an important extra distinction. Perry said if the retailers want to put “vegan” label on their products, the whole products needs to be “vegan”. It means they have to check the chemicals used in making the product, such as the glue that holds the shoe together. Perry said that designer Stella McCartney is original pioneer in this area. McCartney already stop using leather and fur for her products. Currently, she’s exploring a leather substitute made from fungi and looking at replacing silk with yeast proteins.

There has been a debate about durability, production techniques, crop-growing impacts, pollution, biodegradability, and recyclability for most vegan products in the market now. The questionable area is also the ethics around working conditions for people while making the products. Environmental campaigners see the best solution is to buy less, rather than what the items are made of. The retail analyst Kate Hardcastle said that the “vegan” label is being used by some companies to make a product looks far more environmentally and ethically friendly than it actually is. Hardcastle warns customers for not getting lulled into a false sense of security.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49409405

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