Vegan shoes and Vegetarian shoes are shoes which are not made with animal products - i.e. non leather shoes.

"Plastic shoes?", I hear you cry. "Ewwwww! Are you mad?" Surely a fashion violation that will have the style police beating a siren-blazing path to your door?

A few years ago that would probably have been the case, but vegan and vegetarian shoes have moved on a long way since their rather inaupicious early crunchy sweaty days. Nowadays vegetarian shoes are funky, cool, good value, comfy and cruelty free, and modern microfibres out perform leather in many respects, without an animal having to pay the price.

However not all animal-friendly, vegan or vegetarian shoes are made equal. The cheapest and most commonly-used alternative is the plastic PVC. Greenpeace have described it as being "unique in its high chlorine and additives content, which makes it an environmental poison throughout its life cycle". It is allegedly linked to some health problems too, oh, and it doesn't let your feet breathe so they will get all stinky and sweaty. Pooh! Not good. Avoid avoid avoid.

This can be a difficult task, due to poor labelling. Many non-leather shoes are simply labelled 'Other materials', to cover a range of synthetic fibres.

Look out if you can for a material called 'lorica', which is produced from the plastic polyurethane (PU).

Whilst for many, farming conjures up idyllic images of bucolic delight - green fields, frolicking lambs, happy cattle chewing the cud, and Old MacDonald with all his noisy menagerie, the modern day reality of intensive farming is very different. Society's insatiable desire for more more more, and cheaper cheaper cheaper has placed pressure on producers to create more for less. Production efficiency has become the be all and end all, and animal welfare is often pushed to one side.

Cattle welfare is often less of an issue in modern day intensive farming than that of other animals, such as chickens, nevertheless conditions for animals being transported for slaughter can often be far from ideal, and standards of welfare on some farms and in some slaughterhouses can be substandard.  Put simply, for those committed to an existence which does not depend upon other creatures, vegetarian shoes are the way forward.

Plus, it puts pay to that annoying discussion you have with meat-eating friends who argue that being a vegetarian is inconsistent because you are wearing leather shoes. 'HA!' you can now shout back!

Immature? Yes, but very satisfying.

You have all come across Crocs. Yeah, yeah, everybody's got Crocs but did you ever stop to think that Crocs are a great example of a vegetarian shoe?

What's more did you know Crocs have now got cute and funky?

As well as the ubiquitous slip on clogs which have adorned the feet of everyone form age 2 to 102, and which are equally at home rockpooling at the beach or sloping round the supermarket, you can now get slingbacks and sandals in those vibrant Croc colours. They all come with pimply insoles that take an initial but of getting used to, but once you are in them you will never want to take them off!

Even if you are not a vegetarian, vegetarian shoes are a good idea. Vegetarian shoes often have a lower carbon footprint and come from more sustainable sources than their leather counterparts. Check out if you can the conditions in which they are made too. Sweatshops and unfair trade pressures on workers in third world countries are just as unpalatable for vegetarian non-leather shoes as for their more traditional counterparts.

In fact some of the big trend shoes over the past few years have been vegetarian - its just that non veggies have been swept up by their loveliness as well, and what was always ethically cool has now become fashionably cool too.

For total glamour and total ethical credibility try Sui Generis shoes. The Sui Generis describes itself as an English ethical footwear label that trades in a manner that is non-exploitative to humans, animals and wherever possible the wider environment. Using no animal products and sweatshop free, the luxury line is handmade in England, promoting ethically-sound and energy-efficient working practices that prove fashion and ethics can go hand-in-hand.

Even better, the packaging and promotional material is either recycled or from a sustainable source and printed using vegetable based inks, and a percentage of profits go to a selection of ethical charities.

Better still, the shoes are utterly unspeakably gorgeous!!!

For more information about buying ethically the Ethical Consumer Organisation has lots of information