Metro shoes, the rough and ready plastic womens' shoe factory in London, has closed. Fashion has also moved against plastic women's shoes with mesh linings that are meant to keep your skin away from the vinyl. The system does work in cold climates until the lining wears out, and has a dedicated band of vegan followers. A wholesaler called Jay-Bill still sells the Comfort Plus brand for a factory in the Midlands, and there are other firms doing the same thing. The DKNY brand, which was briefly put on some plastic Oxfords, has now gone upmarket.
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The staff are quite used to special requests for different materials and for high heels in mens' sizes, although if your fetish is for anorak cloth you would save 40 - 60 pounds by going to Loveson. Strictly speaking, there might be a reconstituted leather which they legally have to call synthetic. More often the bias goes the other way, because there's a higher tax on importing vegan shoes, and that could be why trainer firms are coy about the vegan products in their range. New Balance and ECCO are the only ones to use european factories, so they might be more honest. To pay for these, New Balance and ECCO have decided not to compete in paying vast amounts for celebrity sponsorship, reasoning some buyers of trainers look for more in a brand.