Wills Vegan Store
I founded Will's Vegan Shoes in 2012 with the aim of making it easier to make a positive choice and live a vegan lifestyle. The first thing most peo...
About Wills Vegan Store
I founded Will's Vegan Shoes in 2012 with the aim of making it easier to make a positive choice and live a vegan lifestyle.
The first thing most people think about before choosing a vegan lifestyle is what they can eat (easy!). The second thing can often be what they can wear. By creating vegan options for people's favourite shoes, I wanted to help reduce one barrier to choosing vegan. If you could get vegan shoes at the same price, same style and same quality as a good high-street brand, why would you not go cruelty-free?
It took a lot of work to get started. A big challenge was convincing a shoe factory in Portugal of my concept. I chose the best quality vegan leather and vegan suede from Italy and paired it with the best quality vegan components. This resulted in vegan shoes that were better quality and cost more to make than a pair of leather shoes, something that had not been seen before by most factories I visited. Leather was the traditional material used to make good quality shoes; anything else was considered a lower quality option that sold for less. After a few trips, I had support from some great factories that manufactured for well-known brands to make high-quality vegan shoes. I could not wait to tell people!
I previewed the first six styles of the collection at Bristol Vegfest on May 24th 2013, and started taking down email addresses from people interested in the launch planned for later that year. Those six styles included the same Chelsea Boots and Work Boots you can see today (with a few tweaks along the way!).
The first stock arrived from Portugal just in time to launch at The Third Estate as part of the Brecknock Road Vegan Festival on November 9th (they still stock us, so if you're ever in the Camden area, check them out)
The first thing most people think about before choosing a vegan lifestyle is what they can eat (easy!). The second thing can often be what they can wear. By creating vegan options for people's favourite shoes, I wanted to help reduce one barrier to choosing vegan. If you could get vegan shoes at the same price, same style and same quality as a good high-street brand, why would you not go cruelty-free?
It took a lot of work to get started. A big challenge was convincing a shoe factory in Portugal of my concept. I chose the best quality vegan leather and vegan suede from Italy and paired it with the best quality vegan components. This resulted in vegan shoes that were better quality and cost more to make than a pair of leather shoes, something that had not been seen before by most factories I visited. Leather was the traditional material used to make good quality shoes; anything else was considered a lower quality option that sold for less. After a few trips, I had support from some great factories that manufactured for well-known brands to make high-quality vegan shoes. I could not wait to tell people!
I previewed the first six styles of the collection at Bristol Vegfest on May 24th 2013, and started taking down email addresses from people interested in the launch planned for later that year. Those six styles included the same Chelsea Boots and Work Boots you can see today (with a few tweaks along the way!).
The first stock arrived from Portugal just in time to launch at The Third Estate as part of the Brecknock Road Vegan Festival on November 9th (they still stock us, so if you're ever in the Camden area, check them out)
