Vegan fashion is booming! Veganism is a growing trend. You only need to search ‘vegan’ and Google trends shows you a steady growth over the past 5 years for online searches for the keyword ‘vegan’.

When you search ‘vegan fashion’, the same steady trends correlates with the trend in ‘vegan’ so it’s plain to see the steady growth in popularity towards a plant based culture.

‘Veganuary’ and breaking records.

It’s no surprise then that passionate vegans coined the campaign ‘Veganuary’ in a bid to improve awareness of veganism across the globe. ‘Veganuary’, like ‘Movember’ challenges participants to maintain an action for the whole of the month; while ‘Movember’ aims to focus on maintaining a moustache in the name of Men’s cancer, ‘Veganuary’ challenges you to maintain a vegan diet for the whole of January, in the name of saving animals lives.

in 2018, ‘Vegnuary’ broke all the records of it’s previous years gone by. Survey’s show 70,000 omnivores took part, while the whole event saw 168,500 total participants, trumping the 2015 total of 59,500.

Since then, veganism in the UK has soared to taking up 7.8% of the population. Furthermore, there are now 375m vegans in this world. A growing market for businesses, especially within the fashion industry.

Veganism and fashion going hand-in-hand

So then, what does this mean for the fashion world? With a growing market comes a growth in brands bidding for custom. Since 2015, more and more fashion brands have focused on targeting a growing vegan fashion market. From high fashion in Stella McCartney, to fast-fashion and smaller, more niche brands, working in specific areas like hair accessories, such as Kuma Design, the supply is matching the need.

Only recently in a study reported on veganism by J.W Thompson intelligence suggests that vegan fashion is going to be a major trend for 2018/19. To be specific, the creation of vegan silk, leather among other materials is the beginning of an era that matches a generation who thinks differently about the world, and is looking at the best ways to maintain and love it.

However, vegan materials pose a separate problem…

Vegan materials vs eco-friendly materials

You might think vegan materials are great, however, they aren’t always friendly. While they might not have a direct impact on animal welfare, the way these materials are produced has detrimental affects on the environment, and habitats of the very animals that veganism is trying to save. Polyester alone is petroleum based production, and impacts the environment in ways just as painful as using animal based products. More often than not, creating vegan leather uses tons more gallons of water that traditional production of leather — posing the question ‘how can we produce materials that are not only animal and cruelty free, but how can they also be environmentally friendly?

Say hello to eco-friendly materials…

Beyond vegan fashion, eco-friendly fashion must take to the fore; a combined approach to not only use plant-based and not animal-based materials and beauty products, while also maintaining the environment and not impacting global warming, deforestation or pollution through water usage is absolutely necessary in order to improve the production of vegan materials. Eco-friendly materials are on the rise too, which bodes well for the industry and both the world and animals within it. That being said, this type of production is a luxury for bigger brands who can afford it.

The future for vegan fashion is positive, if it’s eco-friendly. More needs to be done to support the industry and the brands sourcing and manufacturing materials.