Leather-free fashion in Paris?

October 18, 2009 9:21 AM

Where can I find leather-free clothing in Paris? Specifically, I'm looking for boots and shoes, but bonus points for jackets, belts and the like.

I'll soon be spending a week in Paris, and it seems reasonable to expect that one should be able to buy stylish, leather-free footwear in one of the world's fashion capitals. But so far I've had zero luck on Google in finding any Parisian store that sells leather-free or vegetarian clothing (granted, I'm Googling in English due to minimal French language skills.)

I'm willing to spend some money - though not crazy amounts - for reasonably well-made non-leather footwear, casual or dressy. Stores that advertise as vegan/vegetarian would be awesome, but not necessary. Ideally I'd love to go to a store that specializes in this sort of thing, but I know of only Stella McCartney, and I suspect her flagship store will be trop cher for me.

As a runner-up, I'd be interested in any stores that typically sell some non-leather footwear. (Runner up b/c in my experience, the token synthetic pair of boots in any given place is usually frumpier and more cheaply made than the leather stuff. And then there's the offgassing...)

To narrow things down further, I'm aware that there are good options available for online ordering - I've resisted because I have wide and weirdly shaped feet, and don't feel like dealing with the hassle of shipping shoes. But if you've had great experiences at any given online store, I'd love to hear about it.

And finally, I've found a lot of thorough lists of vegetarian restaurants in Paris online. No concerns there. This is just about fashion.

posted by nicoleincanada to clothing, beauty, & fashion (3 comments total)

Also, as a tip for anyone with Google queries relating to Paris, adding -hilton to your search gets rid of a lot of the crap results.
posted by nicoleincanada at 9:25 AM on October 18

André is probably your best bet for shoes.

"Chaussures sans cuir," is what you're looking for, but I don't think you'll have much luck. Looking at a few French vegan forums most of them recommend shopping online.
posted by fire&wings at 10:02 AM on October 18

Canadian here - I have recent good experience ordering from this site; they have a fair bit of vegan footwear and interesting quirky styles, and although the site's Murrcan I didn't have duty troubles. I have no doubt that they would be reasonable about returns, if you had width troubles. I couldn't see anything but leather shoes on the Andre site.
posted by fish tick at 5:18 PM on October 18