Heads up! One of my absolute fav online shops for veg shoes – VeganChic – is having a sale this weekend – 15% off every order.
Just use coupon code MDBRY9 at checkout to get the deal.
Happy shopping!
I’ve been meaning to write this post forever! This past summer I got an email from Danielle of Solestruck shoes, saying that they liked my blog and wanted to send me a “complementary” pair of shoes, no strings attached. This was new territory to me and I was wowed. So I chatted with her about their selection of vegetarian shoes (she was super helpful), quickly fell in love with many, and ended up picking this totally swoonworthy pair black and white polka dot Betsy Johnson shoes. (They have a flower-patterned rubber sole to make them non-slip – how awesome is that.)
But oh no! No sooner had my order gone in that a wrench was thrown into the works. Danielle was told by the higher-ups that they couldn’t do the shoe blog promo outside of the US because of shipping costs. She was so, SO apologetic, and I was a little bummed. But I thought hey, maybe there’s a way to make this work. So we figured out a plan where I bought another fabulous pair of shoes from their site, and paid shipping on both pairs. The international shipping cost $74 for two pair of shoes – yikes! (Hello, I think someone forgot cross-border shoe shopping when they negotiated NAFTA!)
Next wrench: the website says that all customs, taxes and duties are included in this cost, so you can bet I was not thrilled when I went to FedEx to pick up the shoes and had to pay them $30 in duty. I told Solestruck and they were very surprised – it was a FedEx error and it has never happened before. FedEx told them that they would refund the charges (although I never found it on my statement…but FedEx is not exactly known for not being a sucking black hole of red tape).
Anyhow, all is well that ends well. The shoes arrived, they were beautiful, they fit perfectly, and they were quite comfortable. The only thing I regret is that I can’t buy more of their fabulous shoes! With the international shipping cost and the FedEx screw up (hopefully an isolated incident), I can’t afford to shop there. (Plus, I swear I am not buying any more shoes – honest!) But if you live in the US, I would definitely recommend this place, for the following reasons:
2. HUGE selection of fabulous shoes in a well-organized website.
3. Lots of vegetarian shoe options – Danielle mentioned that shoe brands Rocket Dog, Reef, Baby Phat, Betsey Johnson, and BC Footwear tend to have more vegetarian options, and shoe materials are generally identified on the site.
4. Great customer service from super nice, friendly people.
Plus, when I was emailing with Danielle, she told me about how the company was trying to find ways to be more eco-friendly. Corporate responsibility, great shoes, nice folks – what more can a shoe lover ask for?:)
Kim Kardashian must not have ever been a member of Columbia House, because she’s decided that it’s a good idea to start a shoes-by-mail company, ShoeDazzle, that operates under the same model.
Ahh, Columbia House. I remember thinking that it would be a totally awesome deal. Buying CDs at the mall was like sooooo expensive… But it takes a level of organizational skill that my teenaged brain had not yet developed to avoid being sent the dreaded (and usually awful) album of the month. There was a lot of ‘return to sender’ mailing happening. And, I had exhausted all of the non-sucky albums in their catalogue after my initial order. I tried to combat this with optimism, thinking that I could expand my musical repertoire by randomly picking a few interesting-looking albums each order. That’s how I wound up with the Skinny Puppy 12 inch anthology. But I digress.
Lets think about how this model will apply to footwear. Kim’s “monthly membership society” will charge you $39 and send you an “extraordinary” pair of shoes, each month, chosen for you by her and her army of “fashion experts.”
To start, you take a fashion survey, to help the computer robot experts determine which shoes you’d like best. I thought that was a neat idea. Of course, when it gets to the part when you give demographic information, things get amusing. For example, this question (which I thought I would put in super girlie PINK!):
In your free time, you like to: (pick one)
- Go to a movie
- Meet friends
- Talk on the phone
- Work out
- Go shopping
Like, omg, I like to go shopping and talk on the phone!!1 Do shoe-lovers not read books? (or um, fritter away their hours on the internet?) I’m just saying, some options outside of the total teenage bimbo stereotypes would maybe be a little more representative.
I looked at the “gorgeous” shoes they offered up as an example of the fabulousness slated to come your way should you subscribe, I can honestly say that only two of the lot don’t strike me as absolutely, heinously fug. I would not wear most of these if my life depended on it. They’re the oh-crap-I-got-a-Celine-Dion-belts-out-holiday-carols-album Columbia House equivalent, in shoes.
A new pair of shoes each month for only 39 bucks sounds good in theory, but I think it’ll have the same shortcomings as Colombia House: people are busy and forgetful. If they forget to cancel on a fug shoe month, too bad. If they end up not liking the shoes that come to them, they have to go to the trouble of boxing them up and mailing them back. Not to mention that it completely erases the fun and theraputic process of shoe shopping from life. Nope, I think I’ll stick with my spontaneous shoe therapy, thanks.
Mar 192008
Lily Allen was spotted looking positively bowled over by some shoes today. I can’t tell if that look is “OMG NO WAY!” or “OMG FUG.”
Judging from the pale denim cut-off miniskirt in the full picture, those two sentiments may be one in the same.
Recently, while I was slogging through a big end-of-term paper for my grad course, my good friend Val of in such a world sent me a lovely diversion: an article from swanky veg with a bunch of reasonably-priced cute office shoes she liked from Vegetarian Shoes and Bags, which I hadn’t stumbled upon before.
I was simultaneously thrilled and cursing; thrilled as always to peruse lovely shoes, and cursing my friend because she knows my weakness for shoes! My credit cards were already smoking from holiday shopping (you can bet that one of my new year’s resolutions was to create a budget and rein in my spending).
As I often do, I filled the virtual shopping cart with every pair of shoes I would love to have, then waited about a week while trying to forget about them. During this time, I had a very helpful email exchange with Chris of Vegetarian Shoes and Bags to determine if a cute boot that looked so clearly designed for the fall season might be tweaked with waterproofing and extra socks to withstand a Canadian winter. I knew it was a false hope, but I loved them and wanted to find a way to justify the purchase. Heck, it was a struggle not to order them in both brown and green. I’m such a sucker for anything with corduroy or buttons.
One day, after a particularly rough day at work, I flung open my laptop, went to the site, picked out those same ten pairs, whittled them down to the ones I absolute had to have (none of which were practical for winter wear), and…ordered them. In addition to the boot above, this included a pair of super cute denim vegan flats and, dare I admit it, the vegan patent pleather pump in both black (staple) and red (fun). Behold:
I’m so picky about pumps and heel shape, and these ones have a nice curvature to them. Plus, you’ll notice they have an elastic strap. I don’t like the look of it so much on the red unless I were wearing dark tights, but it looks fabulous on the black and makes it really stay on your foot, making for a huge comfort increase. Also, the strap on the denim flats affixes with velcro, not that button, so it makes them much more adjustable.
I’m noticing a trend here: I ordered all three of these shoes in part because they’re made with interesting fabrics. The boot, corduroy; the flat, denim; the pumps, lined with plaid. I confess, my other love is fabric 
)
Bottom line: I am always so wary of online shoe shopping because of the sizing and comfort issues, and over the years I’ve ended up with a few ill-fitting pairs. But to my delight, every pair in this order was a perfect fit, thanks to this store offering so many half-sizes for my weird little feet. This was definitely a great shopping experience, and I would shop there again in a heartbeat…if I hadn’t made that new year’s resolution regarding budgeting…umm…
