No shoe strings in em, I did not win em

In my search for cool vegan sneakers, I think I’ve found the holy grail (well, they don’t come from a very vegan-friendly company, but…): Adidas
Superstar Hemp. Even the upper is hemp.

I was going to get these Ipaths, but they’re impossible to find (even Ipath’s own online store only has them in 11 1/2s) and I was told by a local store to “check back at the end of January” to see if they had them in stock. But these old kicks of mine need replacing and there’s a Journeys in the mall by my work, so hopefully tonight I’ll be walking home with a new pair of eco/animal-friendly Adidas.

The jury is still out whether or not I’ll rock them Run-D.M.C. style or not.

UPDATE: Though I had to special order them (they had sizes 8.5 and 9.5, but not 9), I did get to check the shoes out. They are super sweet.

In addition, I called Adidas to verify that they’re vegan. After a little checking, the rep told me that they couldn’t guarantee that any of their products (even the ones like their running shoes that use synthetics) were 100% free of animal products. “There may be small traces,” he said. After seeing the shoes, the main part of the shoe is hemp (including the Adidas logo), from what I can tell. And it seems to me that the toe is made from the same material as the sole, a rubber of some sort (which I also realize may not be vegan, in the same way that tires aren’t). So, even if Adidas can’t guarantee they’re 100% free of animal products, it seems to me it’s about as close as any other hemp shoe I’ve seen.