Gone are the days when I’d buy sky-high heels or feminine flats on a mere whim. Even though I have greatly simplified my closet over the last few years, I still have a soft spot for gorgeous vegan shoes. These days, I’m just as selective about my fashion as I am with food I eat and what beauty products I’ll slather on my skin. It all comes down to research.

For me, the people behind any vegan fashion product, and their philosophies, are just as important as the items they produce. Veteran vegetarian footwear designers Nancy Dong and Carlotta Fiorini, say they wanted their passion for beautiful shoe design to have a positive impact on the planet—and to be very much part of the solution. Sounds good to me. Plus, their shoes are divine.

The passionate fashionistas have ensured wearing earth-friendly fashion doesn’t mean you have to wear hemp sacks on your feet—doing good for animals and the planet can be done in style (without forsaking comfort, either). Inspired by the social entrepreneur business model, they created the very vegan and ecological Do-Ni. Made from high-quality Italian leather-free materials, their Do-Ni Nobilia ballerinas (see below) are held together with water-based, animal-free glue and adorned with pre-consumer recycled components. Love!

For Nancy and Carlotta, doing good hasn’t stopped with simply creating eco-friendly footwear. With the direct sale of each pair, 100 percent of retail proceeds are donated to non-profit organisations, with the buyer given the choice of exactly where the money goes. To look great and give back, head to www.do-ni.com for more info.

Five fun ways to be very, very vegan (and romantic) on Valentines Day…

1) Make your favourite person (or yourself) a delish vegan breakfast in bed. Pancakes and Valentines Day just seem to go together. Check out these delectables from one of my fave foodie blogs, VeganYumYum (I like to replace ingredients such as soy milk with freshly made nut milk, sugar with raw agave nectar, and salt with Celtic sea salt etc). Even if you’re your own valentine, it’s still great to whip up a gourmet breakfast and head back to bed to eat it! Also, check out Vegan Yum Yum’s new recipe book: Decadent (But Doable) Animal-free Recipes for Entertaining and Every Day for more romantic brekky and dinner recipes.

SLOW RISE PANCAKES

Makes 8 thick 5″ pancakes

2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
2 1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast (one packet)
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Sugar
1 1/2 Cup Soymilk (or other non-dairy milk)
2 Tbs Oil
1 Ener-g Egg, prepared (1.5 tsp mixed with 2 Tbs water)
1/3 Cup Soymilk, for thinning the next morning, if desired

Whisk all the dry ingredients together until well combined. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the 1/3 cup of soymilk) and mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Use batter anytime the next day.

Once you’re ready to make pancakes, remove the batter from the fridge and stir in up to 1/3 cup of soymilk to thin it if needed/desired. Let the batter sit out on the counter for 20-30 minutes. Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat. Spray with spray oil and wipe out the pan.

Using a 1/3 cup measure, begin making pancakes. I added apple slices to the batter before it set:

You can add anything you fancy: blueberries, chocolate chips, bananas, strawberries, etc.

Once the top is bubbly and the edges are set, check to make sure the bottom is brown. Flip:

Cook on the other side for another few minutes until browned. Stack pancakes in a low oven to keep warm, serve with earth balance margarine and maple syrup.

2) A card (of course!). Recycling anything from cardboard to fabric can make for a gorgeous love token. See this how-to guide from About.com. For those who love a little graphic design in their Valentines Day, check out this sweet duo from Jeannie and Jewell.

3) Run a soothing, candle-lit bath. First step? Get your hands on some detoxifying bath salts. Who knows what toxic ingredients are in the store-bought kind? Here’s a homemade recipe that will put you right into the Valentine’s mood.

LAVENDER, ROSEMARY & EUCALYPTUS BATH SALTS

560 grams of bicarbonate of soda
15 grams of dried lavender
7 ml of rosemary oil
7 ml of eucalyptus oil

Mix ingredients together well and store in an airtight jar. When you’re ready to use, put two handfuls of the salts in the middle of a muslin square, draw up the sides and tie with string or ribbon. Swirl around in bath water until dissolved. The muslin bag is great to rub over your body when you’re finished soaking.

4) What’s more romantic than donning some stunning vegan lingerie? Enter Stella McCartney. Nothing much else to say really, except click here.

5) Make non-toxic, cruelty-free soy candles to adorn the dinner table and bath tub. Here’s a handy guide from Caringconsumer.com

HOMEMADE SOY CANDLE

What You Will Need

• 1 pound of soy-wax flakes (found on the Internet or in local hobby shops)
• 1 mason jar or another type of decorative jar made with thick, heat-resistant glass
• 1 cotton wick (use a wick that’s attached to a metal disc)
• Scissors
• Superglue

Procedure

1. Wash and dry your glass jar completely.
2. Put a couple of drops of superglue on the bottom of the wick (metal tab), then place the metal tab at the bottom of the jar.
3. Hold the wick in place for about a minute or until the glue dries.
4. Slowly heat soy wax in a pan over medium heat until it is completely melted.
5. Remove the soy wax from the burner.
6. Gently and slowly pour the soy-wax mixture into the jar.
7. Position the wick in the center.
8. Once the wax turns solid, trim the wick to ½ inch.
9. Light your candle and enjoy!

If DIY isn’t your thing. Click here for vegan friendly candle retailers.

Vegan pancakes courtesy of teenytinyturkey
Bath salts courtesy Melissa Ray Davis
Candles courtesy sallyleecandles

When you’re an eco girl who loves fashion, finding the right look can sometimes be tricky. While there are more conscious designers adding their collections to the market than ever before, there are also plenty that can leave the urban eco fashionista a little depressed. It wasn’t so long ago that the words “vegan” and “fashionable” simply couldn’t be used in the same sentence. But times, they are (thankfully) a’changin’.

I recently spied hot eco label Lav and Kush and fell completely in love with their pretty designs. Besides the fact they’re green, Lav and Kush’s designs are also stylish, functional with a sweet simplicity.

The clever Canadian designers also give away some of their profits to some great charities including The David Suzuki Foundation (www.davidsuzuki.org), PETA (www.peta.org) and Imagine 1 Day (www.imagine1day.org).

Check out the the complete collection at Lavandkush.com.

If you’ve not yet discovered Etsy, the site where all things handmade rule, some may well say you haven’t lived. Here, a few of the world’s artistically-talented souls gather to sell gorgeous wares, some of which are vegan.

Here’s a preview of some of my favourite Etsy fashion finds of the moment…

Cloche hat from Giant Dwarf

Made from recycled peony pink faux cashmere sweater, embellished with 10 hand-cut grapefruit and ginger fancy felt petals, assembled into a single flower. The over-sized blossom is topped with a hand-pressed button. $USD45.

Soft Cotton Bracelet from Eastern Sky

While these sweet bracelets above are made from vegan-friendly cotton, the shop also makes some of their pieces from Merino wool, so be sure to look carefully when choosing. $USD12.

Eco Chic Handmade Vegan Flats from The Generation

Super sweet cotton canvas and hemp slippers. Soles are made from 25 to 30 layers of sustainable cotton fabrics, stitched with organic hemp threads. No chemical glues. $USD12.

Floral Lockett Earrings from Pink Andie Designs

Vintage pear shaped lockets adorned with a vintage coral pink flower that hang from a mint green flat flower Czech glass bead. Ear wires are nickle free brass. $USD14.

Red Hair Bow from TobyWonKenobe

Hand crocheted red bow hairband that ties in the back, making it a convenient one size fits all. Made from 100% acrylic yarn. $USD10.50.

I ended 2009 by cleaning out, dusting, getting rid of all the old, stuck energy in preparation for the new year. And now the start of a new decade has arrived, it’s time to dig even deeper. It’s time to get knee-deep into my wardrobe.

I’ve decided to box up everything I haven’t worn in the past six months, clothes I’m not really sure about, stuff that’s too big, too small, wrong colour. Even the items I don’t wear, but am sentimental about. Yep, they’re going too. My chosen charity awaits.

The year 2010 is about giving back. Living more simply. Thinking of others less fortunate. Giving without expecting anything in return. Just thinking about living that way feels good. So to do it must feel even better—for the giver and receiver.

One of my big hopes for this year is that more people make compassionate fashion choices, by choosing clothes, shoes and accessories that aren’t made from animals. That goes for choosing beauty products that aren’t tested on or made from animals, either.

There are hundreds of fab fashion pieces that have been designed without harming animals. Stella McCartney is one designer who will only promote cruelty-free fashion. Natalie Portman has a line of vegan shoes. Or you can check out online stores such as Bourgeois Boheme. New compassionate stores are (thankfully) cropping up all of the time.

To find out how to get started on building a compassionate wardrobe, check out Peta’s Clothing Guide. Another great way to introduce some cruelty-free chic to your life is learning how to upcycle, or frequenting stores that make recycling animal-free fashion their mission.

These guys totally support compassionate fashion choices.

Charlize co-designed a pair of the unisex, limited edition slip ons for her African Outreach Project. The design (see below) was launched on the footwear website just yesterday.

Made from all-vegan material, Charlize’s shoes were inspired by the baobab tree and feature the tree’s silhouette, which is embroidered on blue and orange canvas.

A portion of the proceeds from each pair will go directly to the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, which provides education about the need to provide sustainable health, education and recreational resources to remote areas with high rates of HIV/AIDS.

“I’m thrilled to have Toms Shoes as a partner,” Charlize says. “We are so grateful for their generous donation of shoes to the students that we work with. They are passionate about the kids and have been incredibly supportive of the work of the Africa Outreach Project. It’s exciting that we’re able to come together in such a cool and creative way to bring attention to the needs of many South African youth.”

The limited-edition, vegan shoes are available for $US54 and are sold exclusively on Tomsshoes.com. Best get in quick if you’re keen to snap up your own pair … the women’s style is already on backorder…

To celebrate this match made in vegan heaven, here’s a peek at Stella’s 2010 Spring/Summer collection. Gorgeous, and proof that vegan fashion doesn’t have to be ugly! (I wonder if Stella employs vegan-only models?)

Photo: Mitchell Sams for Marie Claire

Photo: Mitchell Sams for Marie Claire

Photo: Mitchell Sams for Marie Claire

Photo: Mitchell Sams for Marie Claire

In light of what I learned about Adidas yesterday—and other footwear manufacturers who make their wares from slaughtered animals—I went on a mission to find some cool casual shoes that were made without harming any cow, or kangaroo, in the process.

Here’s what I dug up:

• Blackspot Shoes (V1 style below) are marketed as the world’s most ethical. What makes them so? Well, the V2 hightop style features a sole made from recycled tyres, while the upper on every style is made from hemp. They’re also made in a union shop in Europe, so no humans exploited either. You can order your very own pair, for around $US75, from the super hip site Adbusters.

• Komodo’s Free Tibet sneakers (below) are ethically made, and are also shoes that keep on giving. Twenty percent from the sale of each pair goes toward the campaign that calls for an end to Chinese occupation of Tibet, and for improved human rights in the troubled region. Get them online from Hippyshopper.com for around 40 (UK pounds).

• Ethletic high top sneakers (below) are made from 100 percent fair trade certified organic cotton canvas upper and durable rubber sole. The sole is produced with natural latex, which they say is tapped from a tree in a well managed and growing forest. All dyes are PCP and AZO free, which I guess means no icky chemicals. Relive your inner Grease for around $US56.

• While I prefer to steer clear of companies who use animal parts in any of their products, it’s still nice to see mainstream companies such as Saucony producing a shoes for us animal-free folks. This shoe is the Vegan Jazz Sneaker, a running shoe for him or her. Check out your local Saucony supplier.

Know of any other ethical footwear companies doing their bit for a greener world? Feel free to share below!

Before long, I noticed that I’d more than halved my wardrobe. Gone were my sexy leather boots, my vintage silk scarf and even my warm woolly socks. This (as any fashion-loving gal would agree) is quite the predicament when one of my favourite phrases is “ugh, I have nothing to wear!”.

After much deliberation about what to do now I absolutely had nothing to wear, I came to a conclusion: donate at least 90 per cent of the cruel items to charity. The remaining 10 per cent stayed in my wardrobe, and then, when I would buy a new vegan piece, I would donate one of the old items.

Until my wardrobe became completely vegan, I made sure I wore any leather or wool item consciously, thinking about the animal and what it gave (ie its life) to make me warm.

This is my point: when you choose to lead a vegan lifestyle, it’s important to remember to be kind to yourself in the process—rather than beating yourself up because you couldn’t part with a pair of 1960s suede cowboy boots given to you by your late dear grandmother.

This also extends beyond the wardrobe. While I’m extremely strict about what I put into my mouth, I’m also kind to myself if I make a mistake. There have been times when I’ve found out there was indeed a fish sauce in the green curry, when there wasn’t meant to be. I consciously acknowledge it, and move on.

As for my wardrobe, I’m now eye-ing off this eco-fabulous coat from Vaute Couture, a hot vegan fashion brand that specialises in coats. I’m pretty sure I need a new tee too…