Burlesque at 50 ... and Beyond | Can Vegan Fashion Avoid the Sweatshop?

Demand for animal-friendly clothing is growing globally, alongside pressure to keep prices down.

Working as an accountant in London, Devika Srimal Bapna had a dilemma. She was interested in animal rights and the environment, had become a vegan and even volunteered for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). But she needed shoes. “I really struggled to find non-leather shoes that were fashionable and affordable and ethical,” says Bapna. That was when she realized there was a gap in the market. In 2015, she started the vegan shoe company Kanabis — which makes use of hemp canvas, hence the name — in New Delhi. She chose to produce in India, where she figured there was more opportunity for growth. It’s also cheaper to produce the same quality products in India while staying ethical.

Bapna’s hardly alone. Kanabis is among a growing number of emerging startups around the world that are producing vegan fashion outside of traditional ethical clothing hubs in the U.S. and Europe, as veganism quickly expands as a global trend. These firms in Asia, Africa and Latin America are manufacturing products initially with a local audience in mind. But their lower costs also give them the potential to reshape the vegan fashion industry back in the West, where high prices serve as a deterrent for many consumers — much as has happened with traditional fashion following the emergence of cheaper manufacturing hubs in Bangladesh, China and Southeast Asia.

The South African capital’s crippling water crisis has spawned a host of new taboos and industries.

It’s 11 am on a Saturday, and both my Cape Town local mall and my bladder are pumping. After one B-grade Americano too many, I slip into the gents. Look at the state of it! Whoever went before me hasn’t just left the seat down (and wiped it too); they’ve even gone and flushed. Whatever happened to “if it’s yellow, let it mellow”?

The heady aroma of stewed urine is just one of the taboos Capetonians have turned up their noses at in response to the city’s crippling water crisis. At the height of the crisis, the city published the ultimate name-and-shame: a map of the city that showed which addresses were using the most water. Social media shaming added to the fervor, and neighbors would comment passive-aggressively about one another’s suspiciously green lawns.

City dwellers also have started to get excited about flushing No. 2s with a quarter bucket of three-day-old shower water (there’s a certain Pythagorean fun to it); embraced dirty cars and learned to live with parched lawns and half-full swimming pools. We save rinse water from washing machine loads and dish-filled sinks; even hotels have urged guests to save their shower water in buckets. It’s a whole new world … and it’s produced real change.

Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma, a royal scion of the northeastern Indian state of Tripura, is an emerging youth leader.

Dressed in a white kurta and pajama with a red-and-black scarf, Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma looks energetic. Rolling up his sleeves, in high-pitched Hindi, he tells the crowd: “Today, the king will speak straight from the heart.” At this gathering of more than 15,000 indigenous community members in the town of Khumulwng, outside the capital of India’s northeastern state of Tripura, Debbarma takes on the state government of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that also rules at the center under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“The youth have lost faith in leaders they elected. They came to power on certain promises that they will protect our indigenous rights, customs and cause. Today, within less than a year, people can see the leaders compromise on basic fundamental issues,” says Debbarma, the 40-year-old royal scion of Tripura.