Striped Serena Wedge: $280 at TheGreenloop.comOrganic Cotton and Hemp Floral Serena Wedge: $280 at TheGreenloop.comFaux Leather Marina Flats by Beyond Skin: $260 at TheGreenloop.comHemp and Faux Suede Bob T-Strap Heel: $280 at TheGreenloop.comShoemakers over the past fifty years have come to rely heavily on harsh chemical glues, dyes, and leather treatments to mass produce footwear. There are certainly a few eco superstars crafting truly sustainable shoes, like the Green Toe line from Simple Shoes and the handmade sandals from Chicago-based Mohop. What these lines don’t provide much of is the hot factor. For many years, fashionistas have tossed aside their well-meaning desires to save the planet in the search for a pair of hot shoes for a date, cocktail party, or those random moments when a trip to the grocery store requires four-inch stilettos to get the job done. Now at long last, Animal Planet-obsessed fashion hounds have an answer to their footwear needs…

Beyond Skin has created a line of uber fabulous footwear that is stitched, lasted and finished by hand in a small, family-run factory in East London. Started by Brit makeup artist Natalie Dean back in 2001 in an effort to create stylish vegan shoes, Beyond Skin has evolved over the years from just cruelty-free to eco-conscious, too. So often, vegan-centric shoe lines are manufactured with tons of attention paid to saving animals from the slaughterhouse and zero attention paid to preserving the environment in which the animals live.

Beyond Skin is a company committed to increasing the sustainability of their vegan footwear line one step at a time. They choose polyester satin over viscose satin, because viscose is processed with huge amounts of acid chemicals which are dumped into rivers, and polyester is typically not. They choose synthetic leathers made from cotton-backed polyurethane (PU) over PVC leatherette which creates sterility and cancer-causing dioxins during its manufacturing process, and polyurethane does not.

So though many hardcore environmentalists may not be impressed by Beyond Skin’s use of petroleum-based materials, everyone else can appreciate the small but significant steps taken by them to make a better shoe. And let’s be real, even the Earth First activist chicks spending their Summer chained to an endangered tree in the Boreal Forest will appreciate a pair of Beyond Skin’s organic cotton and hemp wedges…they’re gonna need something to party in when they kick the worst logging company in the world’s ass!