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Veganism and Manitobah Mukluks

12297 Views 7 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  spacegirl
So I'm currently a transitioning Vegan. And a few months ago, for my birthday, my mother gifted me with a beautiful pair of black manitobah mukluks to wear for the fall, and winter. Now, unfortunately the fur on them is not faux, so that makes me pretty upset. I'd still like to wear them given the fact that I'd never purchase them myself if I would have known it was real fur. I feel like I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I feel like a bad vegan if I decided to wear them. What are your thoughts?
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:( The fur industry makes me cry. It's just horrific. If you looked into the fur industry, you might look at them differently to "beautiful" I cant even wear fake fur even though no animal was harmed just because of what it stands for. I'm very against fur and I wouldn't want it on me. It's like me going to see friends saying i'm vegan but wearing ugg boots, they wouldn't take me seriously. I'm vegetarian... but I won't wear the skin of a once living animal. I don't suppose she has a recipt? You could always return them? Or exchange for something more... ethical? (This is what I did with ugg boots gifted to me years back! :) )
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The choice is yours, no one elses.

I'm not a vegan. I do a lot of vegan stuff, but I'm not a vegan. So, maybe my advice won't apply here, still it's free :D

I have leather boots and a leather jacket that were bought before I went vegetarian. The majority of my winter clothes are woolen (and I'm seriously reconsidering whether I want to wear wool, given the recent videos that have come out). I still wear them. But it doesn't make me a 'bad' vegetarian to wear those things. I'm not perfect, my vegetarianism isn't perfect and veganism certainly isn't perfect.

I'm slowly phasing out the clothes that I can, for more vegan-friendly fare. But no one's taking away my Vego Card while I do that. If I can't find a suitable alternative to my clothes right now, then I can't find it. Very few people even mention it to me, that I wear something that looks like leather. If they do, again, I respond with "I'm not perfect. We use animals in so many ways, that when I decided to change my part in that, I had a lot of stuff left over. I'm using it for now, until I find something else and there are some replacements I'm looking into."
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These are the options I see:

Return them - Pretty good solution, especially if you can get a new pair at the same time.

Throw them away and get a new pair - A waste, creates garbage, pollution. Maybe eases your soul a little.

Give them away - Maybe eases your soul, stops someone else from buying shoes maybe. Maybe it was as bad as throwing them out though. Depends if they use them.

Use them - Maybe bad for your soul. No added pollution/garbage though.


Obviously I am in the camp of if you can't return them or give them to someone who will actually wear them, just wear them yourself. Maybe that doesn't get you your vegan club membership card with some people, but it's better for the environment.
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If it were me, I would wear them. I would also talk to my mom and let her know that I love them, but that in the future, I don't want anything that has fur or leather. If they aren't returnable at this point, then I don't think that there is any true harm in wearing them, since the primary damage has already been done. Some people here will probably point out that sometimes wearing products like that gives the impression you support the fur industry, but I think that you can also do something to combat that. If someone says, "Hey, those a pretty cool" you can reply with something like "Thanks, but I really wouldn't recommend them. The fur industry is really horrible, you know? I ended up with these as a gift from someone who didn't know."

Two years ago, someone bought me a pair of coach boots. They knew I didn't wear leather, but the boots are mostly fabric so they didn't even think about the decorative leather strip that goes around one part of the boots. They bought them from a clearance thing where sales were final, and you couldn't make returns. I really liked the boots, other than the leather strip on them, and so I decided to wear them anyway. I've had a couple people comment on them and I always let people know that I DO NOT support leather, in any way.

On the other hand, after I learned about mulesing, I had a bunch of wool sweaters that I donated to a neighbor who really needed them. Because I'm really big into crochet, and I'm always working with yarn, I didn't want to give off the appearance that I supported wool. To me, wearing the boots wasn't going to cause any real damage, but it seemed too hypocritical to refuse to work with wool and at the same time wear it.
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Sounds as though there's currently no perfect solution to this problem?

So just do what you feel is best, live with it and say b******s to the nayseyers. If you take the opposite course of action, then the naysayers will come at you from the opposite direction! Ain't life wonderful. :)
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Thank you for all the responses. Unfortunately, I cannot return them. When winter hits, if I can't find anything better to replace them with, I will probably wear them. Our winter's up here are rather horrible. I by no means support the fur industry, and I deeply wish that they were faux. I'm doing everything in my power to make all of my purchases cruelty-free, but I'm afraid the damage has already been done on this one. I am even considering calling the organisation expressing my dislike for their use of animal furs, and suggesting that they go vegan.
Thank you for all the responses. Unfortunately, I cannot return them. When winter hits, if I can't find anything better to replace them with, I will probably wear them. Our winter's up here are rather horrible. I by no means support the fur industry, and I deeply wish that they were faux. I'm doing everything in my power to make all of my purchases cruelty-free, but I'm afraid the damage has already been done on this one. I am even considering calling the organisation expressing my dislike for their use of animal furs, and suggesting that they go vegan.
I love the idea of contacting them about how dissapointed you are that they use real fur when there are so many faux options available. Go you! Let us know the response you get :) (we are the voices of those who go unheard) <3
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