Experience with vegan boots made in EU/UK?
Hey all! After countless sneakers going bad on me, I'm trying to look inside of the vast world of vegan boots. Do you know of any brands and their quality? Right now I'm looking mostly at:
- Nae Vegan, based in Portugal
- Vegetarian Shoes, based in UK
- Vegan Shoes Italy, based in.. Italy (lol)
All these have decent-looking options, but I can't find much info online about quality. Any tips appreciated!
Solovair (UK) makes vegan boots
oh! had no idea. Those are supposedly the guys and gals who used to make the Doc Martens when those used to be of good quality, right? A tad more expensive than Nae, but on par with costs from Vegetarian Shoes.
Yup its the original factory I believe!
Did you decide on some kicks?
I ended up trying barefoot winter boots from wildling.shoes, and my gosh! I can't recommend them enough so far.
Nice! Glad you found something!
Do you happen to have experience with them? I'm concerned they will not be breathable enough for my sweaty feet...
I have 3 pair. One of which isn't Vegan. They do get warm.
I have a pair of fancy NAE shoes and they are great. The rangers from Will's Vegan Store where okay, but the upper layer started to crumble after two seasons, where the boots ggot wrinkles. The watertight walking line from them is pretty good, though.
ooh, I see, thank you for your insight! I'm definitely eyeing Nae the most, and your opinion on them might seal the deal. I just wish they had more brown boots models for men!
You’re probably not looking for barefoot style but I have loved my pair of casual boots from Ahinsa Shoes (Czech Republic). Mine are canvas which they don’t seem to carry anymore but the quality/longevity is top notch! Wore them almost daily for ~3 years before they started to show wear. I’m hoping to get them re-lined by a local cobbler.
oh.. I don't even know what barefoot style shoes are 😆 will look into Ahinsa!
As another barefoot option, Freet are made in the UK and offer quite a few vegan options. From all that I've read about them, they seem to be very durable and well made, and often use recycled material.
oh gosh, it's time for another rabbit hole... everyone seem to have very high opinions of barefoot shoes! They do look comfortable indeed.
https://ahinsashoes.com/collections/mens-barefoot-shoes
i can buy 3 merrell barefoot shoes instead of 1 ahinsa 😯
Merrell is too sporty to look nice with most casual clothes imo and their barefoot shoes only last ~3 mo. with daily use in my experience. I do like them for a lightweight camp/river shoe for hiking!
i have gloves i use daily in the winter under the rain, on a bike with metal quills and this will be their 3rd winter.
i don't know what you may mean by "casual" but they make unicolor versions that don't look sporty
what do you do to wear them down in just a couple of months?
Are yours still reasonably presentable? I’ve had a two pairs of vaporgloves and they both got this sort of “hairy” texture on the uppers really quickly just with regular use running errands and commuting and such. I think it’s the sort of plastic mesh material they use that is breaking down. They’re still functional for camping or jogging but I wouldn’t wear them to the bar.
My Ahinsas on the other hand still look -nice- with no separation of the uppers from the soles and virtually no fading 5 years after purchase, 3 of which they were my daily wears. Now the inner lining is breaking down and feels weird without thick socks but they still look great!