I just spent 20 minutes on the phone with Ugg Australia hammering them with questions about where they source their sheepskins and what standards they have in place for the ethical treatment of animals.

Why?

Because a dear, dear friend gave me a pair of Ugg boots for Christmas.

Yep, Uggs. Made from sheepskin. And as you all know by now, I don’t wear fur.

Since my friend knows I don’t wear fur, what was he thinking?

Well, being a guy, I think he knows that Uggs are a part of LA culture and, as an Ugg-lover himself (he literally wore out a pair of their slippers) he knows that even I can’t deny that they are comfy and cozy.

Plus he insisted that wearing Uggs is no different than wearing leather. Hmmm. Really?

I wanted to keep them — even if I only plan to wear them at home — but could I live with myself if I did?

If you’re gonna talk the talk then you better walk the walk, right?

So I Googled and sorted through the unsubstantiated and confusing claims about Uggs on the web until I found articles by respected journalists including the Wall Street Journal. I reached out to the company itself and to its American distributor to clarify and confirm what I needed to know to feel okay about wearing their product. I even digested an article about how kundalini yogis use sheepskins to enhance their meditation practices. Yes, yogis.

And it turns out my friend was right. If you wear leather, wearing a pair of Uggs is no different.

The sheepskins used to make Ugg boots are a by-product of the food industry. Just like leather.

Still, I try very, very hard to only buy vintage leather, so does this mean I should refuse this gift from my dear friend?

I must confess that I struggle so hard with this animal products in fashion issue. I’m a vegetarian, not a vegan, and there’s still an ongoing war that goes on inside of me because of that.

The intelligent, rational, evolved side of my brain says we don’t need animal products in our lives today. But there is something buried in my DNA that sees them and remembers how an animal hide kept my Cro-magnon sister from freezing. How learning to fashion and use tools and gadgets and products from animals fostered our evolution.

So while I hate that Hermes raises crocodiles to make handbags, I hate even more that seeing their craftsmanship makes me swoon. In a survival-of-the-fittest way, I’m proud to be part of the species that survived to fashion these items and yet I despise that my species still fashions these items in the 20th century and that some deep part of me can still view them as beautiful or useful.

So I struggle with whether to feature any more fur, feather, leather, snakeskin, alligator, crocodile, sharkskin, suede or coral items here at Zuburbia. And I wonder where to draw the line. I mean, according to PETA, 3,000 silk worms die to make a pound of silk, too. Cashmere production is creating major environmental problems.

If you look at the Buddhist idea of ahimsa (non-harm) does it mean we should give more weight to animals than to the good of the planet? Shouldn’t our overall footprint count more than each individual step? And what’s better? To purchase a new leather or vintage handbag today that will last another decade or a vegan version from a discount store that will far apart in six months?

What I learned from this Ugg experience is that these types of ethical dilemmas are very personal and very, very complicated. And while I believe that it’s fine to share our stories and our thinking, as I’m doing here, I don’t believe it’s right for me, or any of us, to judge anyone else for their personal choices. The more I learn the more I realize that moral, green, ethical decisions almost always involve some sort of trade-off and there usually isn’t one single answer that’s best for everyone.

That’s why each of us needs to honestly assess where we are in our individual personal development right now and make the choice that feels right for us right now. And if we want to change our choices in the future, we can. And we certainly will as our awareness and consciousness grows. As Oprah says, when you know better you do better.

And part of knowing better is actually knowing better. So I encourage everyone to reach out as I did and learn what you need to learn to make the best decisions for you. Get educated. Seek out answers to your questions. Then reconcile all the competing issues and voices and reach for that place of deep knowing in yourself that will tell you exactly what is right and best for you and your life now.

That’s why I’m going to accept my friend’s gift and will take a moment to pause, remember the sheep who have provided me this warmth and send out blessings to animals everywhere whenever I slip them on.

And that’s why (at least for now) I’ll continue to feature items like today’s VPOD, a rad pair of c. 1970 Edouard Jerrold suede boots.

Because any thoughtful, conscious fashion choice is the right choice for a Vintage Crusader!

Available at ilovetrash.

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