Review Nae Milan Piñatex shoes: Squeakingly Vegan

As a vegetarian, in need of new shoes, I decided this time to search for no-leather shoes. Nowadays, the web makes it very easy to find almost anything that you want.

After some searching, I selected Nae Milan Piñatex, as they have some design elements, and are produced by a Portuguese vegan shoemaker. Saving me the effort to understand all the components of which a shoe is made. Despite the word “vegan” giving me a slight allergic response.

The price of around 125 euro is quite an OK price as well, as in general expensive materials can be avoided. Funny detail is that the shoe is made of “pineapple leaves leather”. Never thought of such an almost eatable ingredient for a shoe, but why not?

In this time of global warming, the manufacturer advertises the shoe as CO2 emission free, which I don’t fully belief as – cradle to grave – still energy might be used during manufacturing and transport. Nevertheless, it’s intuitive that the ecological footprint will be far less than that of traditional shoes.

Drawbacks

Maybe it’s because the shoes are new, but the material is squeaking a bit while walking. Further, the water resistance is low: if you step in a puddle water might seep in via the zippers at the side of the shoes. After a few weeks of use, the material start to show some damage. That could’ve been better!