Vegan, sustainable fashion… are terms that are proliferating on the web, and almost seem a passing fad.
Sometimes we read articles where people combine the word sustainable fashion with leather accessories… but the dyeing industry is instead one of the most polluting industries in the world, so leather can not be considered sustainable.
Meat and leather production are responsible for 18% of glasshouse gases: every cow produces 8.75 kg of methane per year. Methane is a very powerful gas, whose environmental impact is 25 times stronger than CO2. To better understand, you should know that transportation is only responsible of 13% glasshouse gases world emissions.
DYEING SIDE EFFECTS
Leather and furs have to undergo a specific dyeing process.
Animal skins used to produce garments and accessories are treated with countless caustic and toxic chemicals, to prevent decomposition; exactly the opposite of what you high expect from a naturally occurring material.
Dyeing is among the most toxic industries in the world due to the chemicals. Chromium, a renowned carcinogenic substance, is widely used together with acids, sodium and ammonium.
Observation of groundwater in the vicinity of dyeing industries are dangerously high in chromium, lead, formaldehyde and even cyanide, substances known to induce cancer and many other deadly conditions to the inhabitants of neighboring areas.
It would be said … but then does a synthetic shoe pollute less than a leather shoe? Well it does, insn’t it it weird? In the collective imagination, we associate plastic with something harmful to the environment, while when we think about the leather shoe we think about quality, softness, comfort.
And if we tell you that for a pair of leather shoes you need half of a calf? And that 1 kg of leather has a 20 times bigger environmental impact than that of 1 kg of a synthetic material, such as polyester.
We stopped thinking about it… and that’s why we decided to produce only vegan products, using mostly natural materials or synthetic materials with low environmental impact.
Among all fashion accessories, shoes are by far the most difficult to make, this is even more true for those who produce them using synthetic and vegetal materials, due to leather being the focus of existing machinery’s pre-fixed settings as well as very elastic.
Due to this the manufacturing of our shoes is done mainly by hand, by shoemaker professionals. This bestows to the product our care, attention and uniqueness which makes us stand out from standard manufacturing.
We mainly use microfiber as an alternative to leather in shoe production. This material is 100% Solvent-Free and its production reduces
- wastewater by 70%
- organic solvents use by 99%
- CO2emissions by 35%
Everything tied up with biodegradable outer soles. What does it mean? Do not panic, your shoes will not get demaged while wearing them. We use a special mix of SBR rubber, completely biodegradable in 502 days in compost according to UNI EN ISO 14855, without releasing any polluting chemical.
And do you think we stopped here? We decided to produce the whole shoes in Italy, every single step is carried out by skilled hands of small craftsmen in San Mauro Pascoli, the Italian center of excellence of shoe manufacturing. It’s nice to think that you still can make a 100% Italian product.
Does this cost us more? Sure… But it is a point from which we will not move.
Certainly, we are not perfect, we can still improve in so many things. Not all synthetic materials we use are recycled, this is because either they have prohibitive costs that would increase the price of footwear too much or because they are not suitable for our type of product.
What is certain is that we look for the best in every detail. Also the quarter stiffener, which in the majority of the shoes is made with leather powders, is vegan here by us. We use cotton instead of leather powders.
Our packaging? All the boxes are made with FSC paper, from certified forests.
Every day we try to find the best for you, but it is not always easy. We are still a small company, so often big material suppliers prefer to choose the easiest way and work only with world giants rather than with young brands, but we do not stop our work.
You will not see us in many advertisements because we prefer to spend money on research and development now, to give you the best and to have the least impact on the planet.
We have put so much effort and passion to find the best materials for your feet.
Your imprint will have a new impact from now on!