Left: vintage cotton floral dress and brooches, Hunter boots (stylist’s own) Right: Vivienne Westwood cotton shirtdress and climbing ropes worn as belts, vegan Dr Martens boots The current state of the world sometimes reminds me of a short story by Daphne du Maurier which I read by a while ago, called ‘Don’t Look Back’. In it, a hotel room is described as a borrowed place to stay, somewhere to arrange one’s things as at home, and once left, the room and all its memories cease to exist. The very idea of this feels in line with a percentage of people in power at the moment. The attitude that ..read more

After last year’s success, all eyes were on this year’s Vegan Fashion Week: what would founder Emmanuelle Rienda and her team of ethical style enthusiasts come up with this time? Well, now we’ve got the answer: nothing short of something extraordinary.  Held in October this year, this Vegan Fashion Week featured designers such as Nicoline Hansen, Enda, Minttu Melasalmi, Wasted LA and more creators of stylish and innovative cruelty-free designs. The event also featured several educational talks and panel discussions such as “How to Build a Vegan Brand: Vegan Fashion 101,” Social Justice, Susta ..read more

Photo by Jordan McKinsey After last year’s successful first event, Vegan Fashion Week is returning to Los Angeles, with the latest in material innovation and sustainable style.  On 10-15 October, Vegan Fashion Week founder Emmanuelle Rienda is bringing another four days of runway shows, captivating seminars and exciting exhibitions to showcase the finest in cruelty-free style. This season’s theme, Fashion Is Activism, will interpret the way that fashion interacts with the issues facing our planet at this time such as the climate breakdown. “The relationship between fashion, factory farming, a ..read more

The recent Amazon wildfires shook the sustainable living community to the core. Outrage was expressed, memes were shared, and change was repeatedly called for. And with good reason: the Amazon rainforest – the largest remaining rainforest area in the world – is home to at least 10% of the world’s known biodiversity and over 30 million people, including some ancient tribes thought to be among the oldest ever. It also provides 20% of the oxygen that our planet needs to survive.  The Amazon rainforest is also the largest carbon dioxide sink in the world, meaning that it stores compounds that con ..read more

In rather absurd news from the fashion industry, a vegan fashion startup is being targeted by a leather-producing giant over a fabric name. This David-versus-Goliath scenario sees German vegan fashion brand Nuuwaï, whom we included in our edit of the best apple-leather products, being taken to court by the German Leather Federation (VDL) for…using the term “apple leather” to describe their bags. The VDL’s motivation is – wait for it – that the term “apple leather” is misleading, and that consumers might not realise that they are not, in fact, buying a dead animal’s skin. Nuuwaï CEO Svenja Det ..read more

Visiting Fashion Week has always been an experience of opulence, ostentation and showing off. Known as the place where new trends are born, the international runways of Fashion Week have never been synonymous with sustainability. Until the arrival of Helsinki Fashion Week, an event born five years ago from the mind of millennial entrepreneur Evelyn Mora. Helsinki Fashion Week is a Fashion Week like no other – its commitment to innovation, new talent and sustainable design makes it a truly singular event in the otherwise opulent world of fashion catwalks. Burlesque Tsunami Mora, who started h ..read more

  Swimwear is usually the least of the problems of fashion-concerned vegans, as it pretty much never contains any animal-derived fibres. Phew, right? Well, not really: ethical swimwear should still be a concern for all of us. Many swimsuits and bikinis are dangerous for the environment – especially for the oceans, ironically – as they are made from plastic-derived fabrics. Materials such as nylon, polyester, and other petroleum-based materials release microplastic particles into the water when being washed, ending up in the waterways and harming wildlife on an enormous scale. Sadly, only 10 ..read more

The #PlasticFreeJuly campaign was launched by the Plastic-Free Foundation in 2017 to promote a world without plastic waste. The foundation works to equip participants with the knowledge and tools they need to seriously reduce their plastic waste, and for the past years, the hashtag #PlasticFreeJuly has been filled with info on how to downsize your use of this environmentally wasteful material.  Here at Vilda, we take a slightly different approach to #PlasticFreeJuly. While you’re busy swapping to a reusable coffee cup and forgoing plastic bags, consider this: an estimated 60% of all the texti ..read more

Last week saw fast-fashion giant Misguided’s publicity stunt around their £1 bikini. As a slow-fashion advocate I often feel like we’re taking two steps forward and five steps back. This amount doesn’t reflect the true cost of the garment or value the workers who made it, instead it adds to the disposability factor that is so prevalent with the linear system that we see day in, day out. With a garbage truck of textiles being burned or landfilled every second, disposability is certainly something that we should be trying to dissuade, not encourage.  To disrupt this system, it’s imperative that ..read more

So…I wrote a book. It’s crazy to even be writing these words here, as writing a book has been a lifelong dream for me like it is for most other writers. And after having created Vilda, a pioneering voice in the world of vegan fashion, I knew that my first book had to be guide to glamorous vegan living. A dream that has now become reality, with help from my amazing publisher, Murdoch Books. Vegan fashion was still very much an unknown concept when I launched this publication. People wouldn’t even understand what I meant when I told them that I was launching a vegan fashion magazine. “What doe ..read more