Vegan as Folk (fun organic cotton message clothing)
Vegan as Folk is a fun affordable online store, with organic cotton casual clothing and hats for men, women and children. Family run, and all items sent in sustainable packaging. This sweatshirt is 100% organic cotton.
Some vegan clothing companies with graphic images and skulls etc, don’t exactly give the right impression or inspire others. But this company is fun, and uses peaceful positive and colourful messages.
Someone once asked vegan cookbook author Isa Chandra Moskowitz the best way to convince people to try a plant-based lifestyle. She said the answer was on the end of your fork. There is no need to scare people or upset people, to get a positive message across.
More vegan message clothing brands
- Heart Cure Clothing spreads the message peacefully with stylish activism clothing. This nonprofit helps animals and offers free (worldwide shipping) for minimum orders.
- Smug Vegan uses Teemill to print organic message clothing, with the founder donating 50% of all profits to causes that help UK animal charities. These have bold prints and designs and are quite unique – there is even a Dolly Parton range!
- Viva La Vegan
- Say it Vegan
What is vegan clothing?
Organic cotton, hemp and linen are the best natural fabric choices. They are good for the earth and wildlife, and also for us as they last longer (as fibres are not damaged by chemicals). However, vegan clothing also avoids:
- Fur (horrific cruelty, production is banned in the UK)
- Leather (often produced in countries with few animal welfare laws, and the tanning process is also cancerous – it’s not usually a by-product of the meat industry)
- Sheepskin & shearling (the latter is from the skins of lambs)
- Shahtoosh (banned) is from a Tibetan antelope. Pashmina is from a Tibetan mountain goat.
- Silk (usually boils silkworms, even ‘peace silk’ has issues)
- Feathers or down (choose vegan bedding – most ‘eider down’ is from factory-farmed ducks or real eider down is only collected from fallen feathers in Iceland in tiny numbers)
- Animal-based jewellery (no bones, feathers, pearls, oysters, leather)
Read Vegan Style to learn about alternatives to conventional fabrics, and how to create a sustainable capsule wardrobe. It recommends watching the film Slay, from a former fur-wearing fashionista who now campaigns for animal welfare.
Curious why vegan don’t wear wool?
Although most sheep need shearing to avoid over-heating (and be able to see predators), the conventional wool industry has many issues.
Some sheep are sheared too early (leading to hypothermia) and others suffer ‘mulesling’ (having chunks of skin sliced away to prevent flystrike, without painkillers). And many sheep are killed, when they get older and their wool production slows down). You can even now buy vegan winter woollies (thick organic cotton jumpers, as warm as wool).
If you wear wool, choose companies that don’t kill the sheep, simply shearing the wool: like vegetarian wool or sheepskins.
If you see a sheep on its back (due to pregnancy or rain-soaked wool), grab a handful of wool on the sheep’s side and gently roll it away from you (to right it back up (simple video). Then stay with it, until the sheep recovers and rain has drained off the wool. Sheep stomachs will ferment grass even when upside down, and this puts pressure on the lungs and heart, so they will die if nobody helps them get back upright.
