E: 29/02 Win designer shoes & bragging rights - design effort

oliveoyl

PETA

Designed by You: Bourgeois Boheme's Next Sneaker!

Want to shape the future of vegan footwear and see your own shoe design hit the streets? With the help of model and rising star Anaïs Gallagher, luxury vegan shoe brand Bourgeois Boheme and PETA are kicking off the search for a fashionable unisex lifestyle sneaker for AW16.

Students, sartorialists, sneakerheads and anyone else can enter a unisex lifestyle sneaker design for a chance to win and see their dream shoe get made.

On @MissVogueUK today: How @PETAUK are calling on fresh design talent for their latest project: https://t.co/y9UNTr2F4R
— VOGUE.CO.UK (@BritishVogue) January 26, 2016

Bourgeois Boheme is a London-based footwear brand for men and women representing classic and sustainable style with a contemporary edge. With craftsmanship and detailing at its core, Bourgeois Boheme produces exclusively vegan shoes using the finest Italian vegan leather and natural materials. Its shoes have been spotted on A-list stars, including Natalie Portman, Mayim Bialik, Torrey DeVitto and Bryan Adams.

The brand has teamed up with PETA to find a leather-free luxe sneaker design for those who opt for leisure unisex shoes with a purpose, with part of the profits to be donated to PETA’s campaigns for animals. So if you’re a student designer looking to kick-start a career or a fashionista with a vision and want to shape the future of cruelty-free footwear, please submit your entry!

Why Vegan Shoes

For the leather industry, millions of cows, pigs, goats and sheep endure the horrors of factory farming – including extreme crowding, disease, food deprivation and mutilations such as dehorning, tail-docking and castration – often without painkillers. Because of improper stunning, they may face the final incision still conscious and terrified. Watch Leona Lewis explain why leather is hell for animals.

And they aren’t the only animals who suffer. A deeply disturbing PETA Asia investigation in China revealed horrific abuse of dogs whose skin then entered the leather market. Because of China’s frequent lack of supply-chain traceability and intentional mislabelling, products made of dog skin could end up anywhere in the world. Watch the investigation of the cruel industry.

Turning animal skin into leather also has a grave impact on the environment. It requires the use of highly toxic mineral salts, formaldehyde and other chemicals, while tannery runoff contains large amounts of pollutants, such as salt, lime sludge, sulphides and acids. Watch Stella McCartney’s expos! of the leather industry to learn more.

The demand for snakeskin, lizard skin and other exotic skins fuels poaching and extreme cruelty – such as ripping the skin from completely conscious animals’ bodies – and has caused many species to become endangered. Watch Joaquin Phoenix’s video about the barbaric exotic-skins trade.

The good news is that vegan clothes and shoes free from such cruelty are on the rise. More and more designers and retailers – from Stella McCartney to Esprit – are waking up to the fact that animal-free fabrics and textiles are the future. This competition is your chance to be a part of the trend towards compassionate fashion.

Enter Now

To enter, please read the competition details below and then e-mail your designs to [EMAIL="contest@peta.org.uk"]contest@peta.org.uk[/EMAIL] by 29 February 2016.

Competition Details

The purpose of the competition is to design a commercially viable unisex sneaker – to be made from innovative sustainable materials completely free from animal-derived fabrics and products – that Bourgeois Boheme can produce and sell as part of its AW16 line.

Using the line drawings below, designs are to be submitted as illustrated drawings – sketched by hand or digitally – with a perspective from above and the front as well as a profile of both sides. If there are any intricate design areas that need detailing, please include those, too.

Please e-mail your entries to [EMAIL="contest@peta.org.uk"]contest@peta.org.uk[/EMAIL]. The deadline for submissions is 29 February 2016 at midnight GMT. The design team at Bourgeois Boheme will shortlist the 10 designs they find most creative and commercially viable, and the final winner will be chosen from this shortlist by celebrity judge Anaïs Gallagher based on those that she finds the most stylish. The winner will be announced during the week beginning 7 March 2016 and will receive as a prize “bragging rights” and a pair of the finished shoes once the collection is released.

By entering the competition, you are acknowledging that you have read and you agree to our contest terms and conditions and privacy policy.