Vegan vs Sustainable Fashion

"Vegan" and "sustainable" get used almost interchangeably in fashion marketing, as if one automatically implies the other. It doesn't. They answer two entirely different questions, and understanding the difference matters if you're trying to shop according to your actual values.

What "Vegan Fashion" Actually Means

Vegan fashion refers strictly to the absence of animal-derived materials — no leather, fur, wool, silk, or feathers. It's a claim about what a product isn't made from, and it says nothing on its own about how that product was made, what it's made from instead, or its environmental footprint.

What "Sustainable Fashion" Actually Means

Sustainable fashion is a claim about environmental and often social impact across a garment's full lifecycle — the resources used to grow or produce materials, the manufacturing process, the labour conditions involved, and what happens to the garment at end of life. It's a much broader, more complex claim than a simple ingredient exclusion.

Where the Confusion Creates Real Problems

Many vegan leather alternatives are made from polyurethane or PVC — plastic-based materials that don't biodegrade and shed microplastics over their lifetime. A "vegan leather" bag can be entirely free of animal products while having a worse long-term environmental footprint than a well-sourced natural leather alternative. Vegan, in this case, doesn't mean sustainable — it can mean the opposite.

Where the Two Genuinely Overlap

Natural, plant-based fibres like hemp, organic cotton, and linen are both vegan (no animal-derived materials) and, when responsibly sourced, genuinely sustainable — low water use, biodegradable, and free from the environmental costs associated with animal agriculture. This is one of the reasons hemp sits at the centre of our own material choices: it satisfies both claims simultaneously, rather than requiring a trade-off between them.

How to Actually Evaluate a Claim

Don't treat "vegan" as shorthand for "sustainable," and don't assume a sustainable brand is automatically vegan either — some genuinely sustainable practices involve responsibly sourced wool or other animal fibres. The only reliable approach is to ask both questions separately: what is this made from, and how was it made? Our guide on how to spot greenwashing covers the broader version of this same principle.

Our Position

We build our range primarily around hemp specifically because it satisfies both values without compromise — you can read the full reasoning in Our Choice of Fabrics.

Explore our hemp-based, vegan-friendly pieces → Hemp Socks Collection