Our philosophy

Fret not! No humans, animals or small children were harmed in the making of our shoes.

We are an ethical footwear label, passionately doing what we can to trade in a manner that is kind to our fellow humans, animals and wherever possible our precious planet.

This way of working makes perfect sense to us because we are passionate about making a difference whilst staying true to our philosophy; that of creating gorgeous, empowering footwear for discerning, style-led ladies.Fret not! No humans, animals or small children were harmed in the making of our shoes. We are an ethical footwear label, passionately doing what we can to trade in a manner that is kind to our fellow humans, animals and wherever possible our precious planet. This way of working makes perfect sense to us because we are passionate about making a difference whilst staying true to our philosophy; that of creating gorgeous, empowering footwear for discerning, style-led ladies

Made with heart

We work closely with our factories in England, Spain and India so we are confident that no-one is exploited in the creation of your lovely shoes and endeavour to source our components and fabrics as locally to our factories as we possibly can to try and reduce our carbon footprint.

Better still, each season sees the introduction of a new and exciting eco-friendly fabric making our unique and fabulous shoes even more desirable to you eco-conscious fashionistas.

We source only the finest and most luxurious fabrics, making our shoes kind and comfy for your feet. Plus, each season sees the introduction of new and exciting eco friendly fabrics as they become more readily available for us to get our hands on.

Essentially, we are wildly dedicated to proving that fashion and ethics can go hand in hand!

Put a guilt free spring in your step and be the change you wish to see in the world.

Our way

We pledge to give 1% of our turnover or 10% of pre-tax profits (whichever is greater) to grass-root environmental and social projects. We know this is only a small amount but as we grow we will be able to give more which gives us an even bigger reason to want to grow!

Our materials

Our satins are always made from polyesters rather than viscose as viscose has a far greater impact on the environment as it's processed with huge amounts of acid chemicals. Sadly because most viscose comes from developing countries much of the waste from production is dumped into rivers which often severely damages entire ecosystems. Plus no silk is found in our satins either so no worms are boiled alive!

Our synthetic leathers are made from cotton-backed polyurethane (PU) and are sourced from Italy. PU looks a lot like PVC leatherette, but unlike PVC it's much kinder to the environment. PVC contains chlorine, a toxic chemical which produces dioxin during its manufacturing process and has been linked in numerous studies to estrogen-mimicking chemicals and nasties that cause asthma. PU provides all of the glamour of PVC but without being so harmful to our environment.

Although PU (polyeurothane) is made from petrochemicals, turning animal hides into leather is a much more energy intensive, nasty and polluting practice. When you take into account how much energy it takes to bring up a cow nevermind the messy business of tanning its skin the environmental benefits of leather are pretty low. Although not an ideal alternative environmentally, we feel PU is clearly the less of two evils.

Did you know...?

Leather production is an inefficient use of water; a cow can drink up to 127 litres a day. Leather production uses large volumes of water in raising and slaughtering the animal, and then during the tanning process. Water scarcity effects 4 out of 10 people on our planet, but developing countries suffer the most. As leather tanning is mostly out sourced to developing countries the limited water they have access to is being used industrially instead; plus puts people at risk of contaminated water due to unsafe disposal of effluent.

On average, one cow hide will provide 18 pairs of leather shoes and each pair of shoes is accountable for the use of over 1.4 million litres of water! This figure includes the water used to rear and slaughter the cow, and to process the hide in to leather.

Put simply, each time you purchase a new pair of leather shoes you are responsible for using as much water as having a bath everyday for over 40 years!

In terms of disposal you'd think that leather products would be biodegradable, but the tanning agent renders it non biodegradable.

A whopping 25% of land surface is used for grazing livestock. We feel this land would be much better used to grow trees for timber, fuel, fruit and vegetables as a third of our land suffers desertification through the clearing of forests for grazing. Farm animals produce huge amounts of waste that leaches into the ground and surface water. This pollutes wells and rivers and is a huge contributor to global warming.

The EU is the largest importer of reptile skins. Between 2000-2005 it is estimated that 3.4 million lizards, 2.9 million crocidiles and 3.4 million snake skins were brought in to the EU.

In the US alligators and crocodiles are clubbed to death or have a chisel smashed through their spinal cord to paralyse them before being skinned alive; and wild snakes are also skinned alive.

With leather production increasing faster than meat production this brings to question the claim that leather is a by-product. If leather demand continues to increase and meat production decreases it is unlikely leather production would stop. Therefore ayone buying and wearing leather may be encouraging the slaughter of more animals.

EU regulations regarding leather production, effluent, and environmental damage are much stricter than those implemented in developing countries. This is sadly a reason why the tanning industry is relocating to countries such as China and India, where environmental regualtions are much less strict. For example it was recently discovered that leather tanneries in Bangladesh (India) were pouring 50 tonnes of tannery effluent and waste water untreated in to the Buriganga River everyday.

Our components

All of our shoes have insoles made from approx. 70% post consumer cardboard (but this is pretty standard throughout most of the shoe industry). Our heels and top pieces are made from PU plastic that are injection molded and our soles (except on our Beyond Skin Sole range which are made from flexible natural latex) are made from rubber resin of which approx. 70% has been recycled. We have been unable to source 100% recycled resin soles that give the same quality hard resin finish but we are on the case. We have been told that due to the nature of resin it needs to have an element of fresh material added in order to bind the recycled resin together. If anyone has come across something more sustainable without compromising quality please do let us know as we are aways on the hunt for more eco-friendly materials. All these components are sourced from Spain and locally to our Spanish factories.

Our factories

We work closely with our factories in England, Spain and India so we are confident that no-one is exploited in the creation of your lovely shoes and endeavour to source our components and fabrics as locally to our factories as we possibly can to try and reduce our carbon footprint.

Our beginnings

The story so far

Beyond Skin was born in 2001 because it seemed impossible to be both stylish and cruelty free. There were simply no gorgeous, vegan shoes to be found anywhere!

We set upon a mission to bring about style and quality to those that cared. We were keen to make our shoes as close to home as possible so set about our quest to find some of the last footwear factories in existence in the UK. It was not an easy road and it took us almost 2 years to find an English factory that could make beautiful, non leather footwear.

The old days

We started out sampling in a small factory in E17 and just as we were about to start production it closed down. Slightly demoralised but eager to crack on to see our vision become a reality we eventually found another small factory in London's, Camden and in 2003 began to trade from our home on Agar Grove NW1.

We launched a tiny collection of made to order shoes and boots in two simple colourways over six styles. From here the collections grew and grew but sadly our little factory in Camden also met its' demise.

Totally disheartened but not ready to surrender, we struggled on to find one of the last remaining factories in East London to took over our production. This little family run factory handmade all our shoes and to this day still make our exclusive, luxury Sui Generis line.

As awareness of our brand increased more and more boutiques began to ask us if they could carry our Beyond Skin collection. Unfortunately, because they were all handmade in England they were too expensive for us to wholesale. This meant in order to get our Beyond Skin line out to the world we had to spread our wings and take some of our manufacturing elsewhere.

We were very lucky to get introduced to an amazing woman who worked with lots of factories in Alicante, Spain. She helped us to find two lovely Spanish factories to work with to help build our growing brand.

Our adventures still continue and we now have two incredible lines of shoes; our more affordable Beyond Skin line and our exclusive, luxury handmade in England Sui Generis line.