Portman Created Vegan Shoe Line Because Target Just Wasn’t Cutting It

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by Michael dEstries February 25, 2008
Categories: Animals, Fashion
Tags: , .

natalie_portman.jpgThe Times has a great interview with Natalie Portman; incidentally conducted while shopping for ingredients for vegan cupcakes at a Whole Foods. Anyways, as expected, Portman goes into the ‘why’s behind her new shoe line and the inspiration for the idea. Here’s a highlight:

“Basically, I did it out of a lack of choice. Stella McCartney does great shoes, but they’re expensive and very fashiony. I wanted a mary-jane shoe without leather. I’ve been getting stuff from Target, which is de facto vegan because it’s so cheap. But I did need some shoes that weren’t made of canvas or plastic.”

While we wouldn’t call $250 shoes an inexpensive option, I guess compared to Stella McCartney’s prices they’re a steal. I also found it interesting that all profits from the shoes will go towards the Nature Conservancy. Nice touch.

Oddly, the author says Portman is wearing a “jade cashmere sweater” during the interview. She may be mistaken, but we’re pretty sure cashmere goats might object to a vegan wearing their coats.

via The Times

About Michael dEstries

Michael has been blogging since 2005 on issues such as sustainability, renewable energy, philanthropy, and healthy living. He regularly contributes to a slew of publications, as well as consulting with companies looking to make an impact using the web and social media. He lives in Ithaca, NY with his family on an apple farm.

View all posts by Michael dEstries →
  • parrish

    In other news: Natalie Portman will you marry me? PLEEEEAAASSSSEEEE!!!!!

  • http://brazilnut-nyc.blogspot.com Andrea N.

    Michael, I don’t think she is vegan. I think she supports vegan choices, but she eats dairy and eggs, for example (I read somewhere). Well, I just think this is a great start. She’s young, she’ll learn.
    I love this blog, by the way!

  • http://www.ecorazzi.com michael

    Andrea,

    I thought the same thing myself, but then about a week ago, people corrected me and said that she’s fully vegan now. One of her long-standing commitments to being a partial-vegan was that she never purchased clothing made with animal products.

    So the cashmere sweater is a curious observation. Personally, I enjoy cashmere — so I have no issues with it, but the Vegan world might.

  • rober

    how does one tell cashmere from appearance? it’s super-fuzzy?

    also being vegan doesn’t necessarily mean that person throws out $5000 worth of items they may possess that are not vegan that were possibly purchased before becoming vegan.

    my wife and i and our two children have been vegan for 4 years, yet if you visited my house 6 months ago you might be shocked to see my living room filled with leather furniture (2 HUGE couches and a chair). And if you peek in our closets you’ll see there are dozens of leather shoes! I even have an expensive leather jacket i haven’t found a home for yet.

    I’ll be wearing some of these leather shoes for the next 10 or 20 years (my funeral/wedding shoes for instance).

    Being vegan to me means that we’ve decided to never again purchase non-vegan items – it doesn’t mean that we’ll be throwing out absolutely every non-vegan item we bought before making the choice to become vegan.

  • Carmen

    I agree with Rober that it is plain wasteful to throw out all non-vegan household items now that you are vegan. I continue to wear my leather shoes because, frankly, I have Reynaud’s Syndrome and pleather just doesn’t keep my feet warm in the Midwest winters.
    Also, I read recently on Ecorazzi that Portman is a vegetarian as far as cooking goes, but does not wear animal skin. Cashmere is actually good for goats because they have to be raised really, really well in order to get high-quality fibers.

  • parrish

    YES YES AND YES!! Rober I totally agree! Go Vegans

  • davidconnell

    I totally agree with parrish…

  • http://www.KristensRaw.com Kristen’s Raw

    I love seeing celebrities do vegan supportive activities.

  • http://wyldeandraw.blogspot.com/ jenny

    if you have a voice (and due to the way of the world these days. . .celebrities do). . . and you use it (and your financial resources) to get behind a worthy cause, to stand up for greening the planet and/or just giving more publicity to these important issues. . . i say more power to you.

    and as for the cashmere. . . it’s not necessarily a hypocrisy to veganism (do i need to mention the common vegan tendancy to eat lots of packaged and processed foods simply because they don’t contain blatantly used animal products- people may be surprised if they dug deeper into ingredients listed on the backs of some “health foods”). . . take for example the Mongolian cashmere line from Stewart + Brown https://secure.stewartbrown.com/store/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=MWEST-T51HENS69S6&Category_Code=CSHMR

    Every little bit makes a difference, and we all make our own choices, as long as they have low to zero impact on the earth, who is anyone else to start throwing stones??

  • http://www.vegetarianshoesandbags.com/ Michelle

    I think her shoes are great, and her heart is in the right place, but can most of us “average joe’s” afford 200+ dollar vegan shoes? Check out Vegetarian Shoes and Bags. Affordable AND trendy as well!

  • http://kwanzoo.com oakling

    mmm… vegan cupcakes….

  • http://vivalagreens.com Christy

    You already revealed the fact that Portman wears animal and while traveling she sometimes can’t be vegan, in a previous post a couple of months ago that got a lot of debate too. So it’s not surprising if she’s caught wearing animal. Like the ppl said above, it’s a personal choice if you are going to donate your animal clothing or continue to wear it out. For me, I donated it because of my conscious and so I didn’t look like a hypocrite.

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  • Dawn

    I doubt she was wearing a non vegan sweater.
    That’s great she has her own shoes line but they are overpriced. I can’t believe she thinks that $250 for shoes is good!

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