Your vegan wedding dress is not necessarily sustainable or even ethical

Some people might find it surprising that vegan is not always the sustainable choice or even the best ethical choice. It all depends on your point of view. If you are a vegan bride looking for a wedding dress, I hope this blog post helps you choose a dress that is not only ethically vegan, but made sustainably and ethically as well. 

Why is it that your vegan wedding dress might not be ethically made or sustainable?

Sustainable and ethical are not necessarily vegan. Vegan is not necessarily sustainable and ethical.

What a conundrum right? On one hand, locally handcrafted wedding dress made from British made ahimsa silk is considered to be sustainable (local production and locally made natural material) and ethical (local dress production which guarantees fair pay as well as the production of ahimsa silk which doesn’t kill or harm the silk worms) but is not vegan.

On the other hand, you can choose to have a wedding dress that was made without animal derived materials which is good from an animal rights point of view. However, that same dress can be mass-produced dress made from low-quality polyester fabric that is manufactured in China in a factory that doesn’t respect the rights of the employees which makes it not sustainable and not ethical from a human point of view.

Consider if it’s worth having a vegan wedding dress that is made from an unsustainable fabric and mass-produced in a country that doesn't  adhere to laws that support fair treatment of employees.

How to make sure your vegan wedding dress is made respecting humans and the environment as well as animals

Think carefully which of your values takes priority when you start looking for a wedding dress and then make decisions based on them. Like always when it comes to buying sustainable products, ask questions. 

• Where was the dress made?
• Who made the dress?
• What material are the fabrics made of?
• Where were the fabrics made?

The best way to make sure your dress was made without hurting humans or animals is to choose a locally handmade wedding dress that is made from materials that are as locally produced as possible (the UK or EU).

Like mentioned earlier, any polyester dress is, in theory, vegan but if you want to avoid adding plastic (that’s what polyester essentially is) to the world, you should consider the fabrics a bit more. There are sustainable and plastic-free fabric options for vegans as well. We use lyocell and organic bamboo for example.

The good news is that nowadays, you don’t have to compromise. If you would like your wedding dress to be vegan and made ethically using sustainable fabrics, you can have it! Most of Indiebride London dresses are both sustainable and vegan and we actually won PETA UK’s “Best Bridal Dresses” award in 2021. An award that we’re so proud of!

 Miina

xx