All Vegan -- in University Heights since 2003 and owned by animal activist Joy Zakarian -- won't give you boutique booties. But the city's only vegan accessory store does have shoes with personality. And everything's made of cotton, recycled tire, plastics or other synthetics: no animal products here (hello, that's what makes it vegan).
Sure there's the expected hemp shoes by Green Tea for $85 with a warning label "don't put this in your pipe and smoke it." And plenty of vegan sloganism (see below) on par with The Smiths' "Meat Is Murder" or local deathgrinders Cattle Decapitation's gag-rock.
"But some of the selections are mainstream," says Helen Morrison, the All Vegan saleswoman with the dyed asparagus-green hair. Flirty BC Footwear also is a popular offering at Urban Outfitters (check out these $38 slingbacks, below).
And they carry Fuggs (the fugly non-sheepskin equivalent of Uggs). But be prepared to hear a few gory tales from Morrison about mice being poisoned until their insides spew out or haunting slaughterhouse screams from the "Meet Your Meat" movie Alec Baldwin narrates. ("It still gives me nightmares." Really? He's great on "30 Rock.")
And the price? "Anything's cheaper than leather," says Leslie Ellis (below), from North Park, who browsed $145 mens boots by Vegetarian Shoes to replace the leather Doc Martens she was wearing (which usually go for $140: Go figure).
But sometimes going vegan doesn't mean going green.
"Not all of them are eco-friendly, necessarily," admits Morrison with a shrug. "A lot of the shoes are made in China." That'd probably rub the "buy local" and "end America's oil addiction" crowd the wrong way, what with the ecological cost of imports.
Guess saving your vegan sole means compartmentalizing your causes.
In other vegan fashion news: This month, San Diego model Meggan Anderson won PETA's "I'm Too Sexy for Leather" contest.
