Vegan Miscellanies

Vegan Princeton Shoe Disaster Story

You may recall my post about a pair of vegan dress shoes I ordered from Alternative Outfitters. They are crap! Though they are one of the cheapest vegan dress shoes to be found online, they are worthless. Do not buy them.

I had hoped to get at least a year or perhaps two out of them, but what I got instead was a few weeks. I thought it only fair to allow Alternative Outfitters to respond to my complaint before I reviewed the shoes here. Below is the letter I wrote to their customer care centre:

Hi,

On January 27th, 2010 I picked up my vegan Princeton dress shoes from the post office. I was quite excited about them and they felt comfortable for a couple of weeks.

After only about 3 weeks of wearing these shoes strictly at the office, where I sit most of the day, they were beginning to hurt the soles of my feet. The sole, it would appear, has a hard plastic waffle-like body with a rubber or plastic compound at the bottom and an insole on top of it. The insole, after these few weeks, was sinking into the hard waffle pattern and pressing painfully into the soles of my feet. A couple of weeks ago now, after a short walk, the soles of my feet were so sore that I had to take the shoes off as soon as I got home. Upon inspection, I found the soles of both shoes to be cracked almost all the way through.

This is pathetic! I have used these shoes under very gentle conditions for only four or five weeks and found them broken and useless.

I wrote about these shoes on my Vegan Miscellanies when I first got them and now have nothing good to say about them. I need to share with people how these turned out, but I wanted to write to you first. Please make this right.

Thanks,
Abram

Below is their reply:

Dear Abram,

We are sorry to hear about the condition of your shoes. We have sold a lot of these shoes and have not had any problems with them. In any case, we would be happy to offer you a replacement pair, or if you’re feeling weary about receiving another pair of the same shoes, we could always issue you a store credit to be applied toward a future purchase. Also, it would not necessary to return the damaged shoes back to us.

Please let us know what you would like to do. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.

Sincerely,

### ########

Alternative Outfitters

I chose to accept the store credit, though I haven't yet decided on what to get with it. I thought it was decent of Alternative Outfitters to at least offer me a store credit. I am nervous about trying another pair of shoes and I don't really like the idea of having to pay the shipping, handling and taxes on whatever I do buy. When the shoes arrived, those things together were almost half the cost of the shoes themselves (the order came from Pasadena, CA all the way to Hamilton, ON).

If anyone has any suggestions on what is a safe and decent product to order for about fifty bucks, please let me know.

Vegan Shoes

Last Wednesday after work I picked up my new vegan casual shoes for the office. I ordered these vegan Princeton shoes from Alternative Outfitters, as the only non-leather options I could find in local stores were cheap Payless shoes made in China under unknown/questionable labour conditions. It is equally important for me to buy vegan products, so animals need not suffer and die for me, as it is to buy products made under fair labour conditions, so people need not slave away in sweat shops for me.  

I had been wearing, when I had to be more dressed up for work, an old pair of leather dress shoes. They felt like a skeleton in my shoe closet. I had purchased them several years ago when already vegan because I had no dress shoes, had an interview for a job in two days (no time for mail order) and needed good looking shoes quickly. I could have bought a cheap pair of shoes at Payless that were man-made, but then I worried about the people who made the shoes (I could find nothing about fair labour conditions). I was in an ethical quandary. 

When my workplace changed its dress policy to allow jeans and t-shirts, I bought a pair of black Converse running shoes that happened to be made of man-made materials. I don't know about the labour conditions at Converse. I used them until they were completely run down, with holes in their soles and missing eyelets. And then, while I was still trying to stretch the life of those, the office dress policy reverted back to business casual. I had to get new shoes and, having some time, but finding no decent local options for shoes that were both vegan and manufactured under fair labour conditions, I mail-ordered.

Speaking of local vegan options, I found a place in Toronto's Kensington Market called Left Feet. It turns out they had to close their doors Sept. 11, 2009 because they could not renew their lease. They are looking for a new location. I also found a shop called Vegans Love Lava out of Guelph, ON, just a 15 minute drive from my workplace, but they have no store front and their vegan dress shoes are expensive. Their cheapest vegan dress shoe for men was over a hundred dollars before shipping, while the shoes I ordered from Alternative Outfitters were still under a hundred after shipping & handling and duty.

I hope these last me a while - at least a couple of years. I'll keep you updated.