Happy Easter Monday everyone! I hope you’ve been having a lovely bank holiday weekend and sufficiently stuffed your face with vegan chocolate? I know I have! This Easter has got me thinking about how connected this holiday is with animals. Baby chicks, cute bunnies and leaping lambs seem to be everywhere on supermarket advertisements, clothing campaigns and family activities. Everyone loves to see cute animals around Easter, but I couldn’t help but see the sad irony that most people are still eating meat/dairy products, wearing/using animal products or using animals as entertainment. I had to ask myself; why couldn’t people see the hypocrisy in this?

I thought about doing a blog post about styling and how to work with pastels, prints and lace to achieve the perfect Easter outfit, but when I get this worked up over something I really can’t wait a week to talk about it. So I’m using this Easter to get a message across – it’s not okay to favour animals in certain contexts over another. By this I mean, if you think baby chicks are cute and you wouldn’t be ok if someone hurt one in front of you, then why are you okay having chicken for dinner? Or even having an egg, seeing as it’s the egg industry that killed millions of baby boy chicks everyday and throws them away like they’re nothing! I’m trying to remain non-judgemental but one thing I can’t tolerate is hypocrisy, please don’t go around saying you’re an environmentalist if you’re contributing to the most damaging industry on Earth; animal agriculture.

If you feel the same as me and wanted to use this time to get your message out there, whether it’s similar to mine or your own animal rights message, clothing can be a great way of getting it across. I’ve got a few ideas that might help…

Viva La Vegan!

Viva La Vegan is a UK based fashion company committed to clothing with compassion. They promote veganism through slogans on shirts, badges and bags, and all the material they use is either organic cotton or recycled clothing turned into something new and fabulous! At last year’s VegFestUK, I bought this upcycled denim shirt from their ‘Viva La Vegan Vintage’ section, with the message “Until every cage is empty” printed on the back with vegan water based inks. It was great to buy something that someone else had donated previously; it keeps the clothing cycle going instead of having to start from scratch again! By wearing shirts and t-shirts with positive, anti-animal cruelty messages on them, you are effectively becoming part of the solution; raising awareness through kind, proactive methods. You’ll also be helping out a great brand and look hot as shit while you’re doing it!

Save The Duck

One of my favourite outerwear designers, Save The Duck, is a great example of a brand doing their part for the animals! STD don’t use duck or goose down in their coats and jackets and their social media channels always remind people of that fact, consistently driving it home that you can have great fashion without great pain. The process of extracting duck/goose down is one of the most barbaric practices that we still allow to happen to animals and it’s important to check when buying your next winter warmer that it doesn’t contain any real down. (If you need some guidance with this I did a blog post about finding the perfect coat, click here to read it) Walking around in a Save The Duck coat sends the right kind of message and also will attract more people to buy vegan down.

HeartCure Clothing

There’s one company I have to give the ultimate credit to as they are going above and beyond the expectations of a vegan clothing brand. Heartcure Clothing make a variety of t-shirts, vests, joggers and hoodies with vegan slogans and illustrations printed on them, using 100% organic cotton and water based inks (with purchase of the bee print tee, you get a packet of wild flower seeds to plant to encourage more bees in your area! How cool is that?) What really sets Heartcure Clothing apart though, is that they donate ALL of their proceeds to Brook Farm Animal Sanctuary, a family-run company that takes in rescued animals, some of whom may have been killed by the meat or dairy industry!

To me this is the one of the most selfless acts of kindness I’ve seen in the fashion industry and I really love that by supporting the clothing brand Heartcure, you are directly helping rescued animals live a longer and much happier life. Wearing one of these prints is a great way to show you care for the animals and makes vegan activism even more stylish! I would love to do some volunteer work for the sanctuary someday (in fact it’s on my 30 before I’m 30 list) and I will continue to shout Heartcure’s praises and promote the work these vegan activists are doing!