October 5, 2025, 2:06 pm | Read time: 5 minutes
Vegan fashion is trending. Not only is a purely plant-based diet becoming increasingly popular, but so is the ethical and sustainable consumption of fashion without animal suffering. But what exactly is vegan fashion? How can clothing with animal protection be identified, and where do animal components hide even without obvious labeling?
Merino Sheep Suffer for Wool
A vegan lifestyle no longer “just” means avoiding animal-based foods. The choice of clothing, shoes, accessories, and cosmetics also plays a significant role as part of a vegan philosophy. Avoiding animal products in the diet is and remains an important step for animal welfare and climate protection. But animals are also tortured and exploited for fashion and other products.
In the production of merino wool alone, sheep in Australia suffer immense pain. There, the skin around the tail is removed without anesthesia. The reason for the mulesing practice: Flies often lay their eggs in the animals’ excess skin. This excess skin is a result of their overbreeding to produce more wool per sheep. The cruel mulesing method is intended to prevent fly maggot infestation, causing great suffering to the animals. With vegan fashion, you can be sure that all animal-derived components are avoided and no animal suffered for the product.
Recognizing Fashion Without Animal Components
Materials like leather, fur, and down are obviously not vegan. They carry the label “Contains non-textile parts of animal origin.” But animal materials also hide in small details like the patch on the waistband of jeans, sneaker glue, or the dye in sweaters. Many might think silk is a cruelty-free material. However, silk production also involves insect suffering. Silk cocoons are boiled to kill the larvae inside before the silk thread is extracted. For just one gram of silk, 15 silkworms must die.
Besides checking labels for non-animal materials, certifications can help. This way, you can confidently identify vegan fashion. The “Peta-Approved Vegan Logo” certifies fashion without animal suffering. It also guarantees that no hidden animal ingredients are in textiles or other accessories not listed as main materials on the label. Animal products can be found not only in the main material of clothing.
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Hidden Details of Vegan Fashion
Unnoticed, cheap animal products like buttons made of horn, bone, or mother-of-pearl, beeswax as a waterproofing for rain jackets and outdoor clothing, and accessories like feathers, shells, and pearls can be used in fashion. Another example is the patches on jeans, which often consist of leather even in organic denim. However, there are alternatives made from cotton, Jacron paper, or cork that look just as trendy as leather patches. Labels like Nudie Jeans since 2018 and Armedangels since 2016 have proven this by using sustainable and animal-friendly Jacron patches for their vegan jeans.
Leather shoes are, of course, not vegan. But what about fabric sneakers or shoes made from cotton, linen, hemp, wood, cork, rubber, synthetic fibers, or faux leather? Unfortunately, even shoes without leather often contain animal components. In the glue! It usually consists of casein glue from milk or glutin glue from bones and animal hides. These components are not always declared on labels. The only solution is to buy from shoe labels like Veja, ekn footwear, Nae, Ethletic, and Fairticken. They produce verified vegan shoes under social and fair conditions.
Textile dyes are often mixed with animal components like the red dye carmine from cochineal insects. These are not found on the label. Often, the only solution is to inquire with the manufacturer or buy from fair fashion labels like Armedangels, which use entirely plant-based dyes in their collections.
Why You Should Ban Silk From Your Wardrobe
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Vegan Material Alternatives: Pineapple Leather, Cork, Tencel, and Soy Silk
Many fashion labels use alternatives made from plant-based or recycled materials to stop animal suffering caused by the fashion industry. Eucalyptus and beech wood fibers, cork, or recycled PET bottles can be used to create innovative, durable, and attractive materials without harming animals.
As a substitute for wool, vegan fashion has discovered plant-based or synthetic fibers like cotton, bamboo, linen, polyester, nylon, acrylic, viscose, cork, hemp, lyocell (Tencel), modal, polyurethane, and spandex. The versatile Tencel from eucalyptus wood is especially popular. This particularly eco-friendly Tencel is not only used as wool but can also imitate silk or leather. A silky material can also be made from the byproduct soy fibers. You can safely wash it in the machine.
As a leather substitute, fabrics based on mushrooms, paper, plastic, cactus, or pineapple fiber have been developed. They are often used as animal leather alternatives for shoes, fashion accessories, and even furniture.
Vegan Fashion Labels Without Animal Suffering
Vegan clothing, bags, shoes, and accessories are becoming increasingly popular. In addition to vegan designer fashion from Stella McCartney, which focuses on timeless designs made from sustainable and fairly produced or recycled materials, there are also many small fashion labels with vegan and super stylish fashion—even for smaller budgets. Favorites include the minimalist designs from the Hamburg fashion label JAN ’N JUNE, sustainable and stylish sports and leisurewear from Bleed Clothing, casual street styles from Recolution, and winter coats made from recycled PET bottles and grain-based lining from Embassy of Bricks and Logs—all Peta-Approved Vegan.
Sources
- Peta.de, “Vegan Clothing – The Best Tips for Cruelty-Free Fashion” (accessed on October 4, 2025)