{"id":19968,"date":"2022-09-21T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=19968"},"modified":"2022-08-30T12:08:15","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T16:08:15","slug":"a-kansan-cobblers-daughter-works-with-doshi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2022\/09\/21\/a-kansan-cobblers-daughter-works-with-doshi\/","title":{"rendered":"A Kansan Cobbler\u2019s Daughter Works with Doshi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Cat Webling<\/p>\n

The conflicting story of a leatherworker\u2019s daughter joining forces with an innovative vegan brand.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny to me how life works out. It\u2019s never quite what you expect – the plans that you have don\u2019t match the outcomes, and often, what actually happens is better. I think this might be the case for my working with Paras and the rest of the crew at Doshi, especially considering my background.<\/p>\n

How I came from leatherwork to work with Doshi<\/h1>\n

I am the daughter of a cobbler – my dad was the person that everyone in my Georgia town went to when needing their shoes fixed. He did far more than that, though; his little shop was full of leather hides and strips, which he used to make horse bridles and knife sheathes and gun holsters and many, many more things. I spent a lot of my time there when I was a little kid; to me, the scent of leather was the scent that I caught when I hugged my dad after a long workday, and the animal hide was a tool I could use for idle projects between serving customers at the counter.<\/p>\n

As an adult, though, I\u2019ve moved away from that. My father retired a few years ago, selling the shop and its hides, and I began a career as a writer, working freelance to support myself and my own family. I moved to Kansas and stopped thinking about leather beyond vague nostalgia.<\/p>\n

When I got in touch with Paras, I didn\u2019t have the highest opinion on vegan leather. My image of it had always been that cheap, peeling stuff my dad would turn away from the shop – it\u2019s not something that can be fixed, as trying to stitch it back into place after it\u2019s pulled away would simply rip it to threads. I had a cheap, faux-leather jacket like this when I was young; my dad had always hated it and begged me to get one made from the genuine article. It lasted a couple of years before it was peeling and tearing and nothing more than a ragged mess. So the idea of false leathers left a bad taste in my mouth.<\/p>\n

The longer I work here, though, the more I realize that what I experienced was simply the bottom of the barrel when it comes to materials. Doshi\u2019s products are far more beautiful than the dime-store products I was familiar with; they\u2019re durable and strong, designed well enough to last as long as their animal-based counterparts. They\u2019re made from far more interesting materials pineapples and paper, which I never even considered as a possibility.<\/p>\n

Better than any of that, Doshi\u2019s products don\u2019t feed into a vicious cycle of abuse. Though I\u2019d grown up around it, I\u2019d never actually seen how leather was produced. On a surface level, I understood: the animal was raised, then slaughtered, then its skin was treated and shipped to us for use. It wasn\u2019t until I looked closer for Doshi that I realized exactly how badly the animals were treated, how many were slaughtered annually and wastefully used for only their skin, how intensely bad the chemical tanning agents were for the environment, and how detrimental the entire industry is to our planet long-term.<\/p>\n

It made me appreciate even more working with a brand that cares so much about the sustainability and kindness of its products, from material sourcing to production to reinvesting in charity. The team behind Doshi is wildly passionate and dedicated to improving the fashion industry long-term by leading through example. I couldn\u2019t ask for better colleagues.<\/p>\n

The quirks of working with vegan brands<\/h1>\n

Of course, working with a vegan brand has its little quirks.<\/p>\n

Firstly, it\u2019s difficult to make people understand why I do it. My dad, of course, is still of the opinion that leather is superior in quality, and being in a cattle-raising county in Kansas, it\u2019s difficult to find anyone who agrees with Doshi\u2019s work. I don\u2019t try to argue with them – it\u2019s difficult to admit that your livelihood is hurting the planet. I suppose you can\u2019t please everyone.<\/p>\n

Beyond this, most people I\u2019ve spoken with have the same misconceptions I had about vegan materials. They associate \u201cvegan leather\u201d with PU leather and its peeling inability to survive like genuine leather. Strangely, though, I\u2019ve found the best way to combat this is to bring up the interesting materials that Doshi uses. I love watching people\u2019s faces light up when I tell them that we carry wallets made from the waste of pineapple<\/a> production<\/a>, or that we have beautiful <\/a>belts made with microfiber<\/a> that looks and feels like genuine leather.<\/p>\n

I also occasionally get the comment that working for a vegan fashion brand is not only pointless but pretentious. \u201cThey\u2019re stuck up,\u201d a friend said to me once, \u201call vegans are so self-important it hurts.\u201d It\u2019s another weird stigma, I think. I\u2019ve definitely met some pushy vegans, but not on the Doshi team. In fact, not everyone who works on the team is vegan – I\u2019m not – and the ones who aren\u2019t never get any flak from the ones who are. In fact, everyone I\u2019ve worked with, from my writing team to the leadership group, has been nothing but polite, understanding, and fun to talk to.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h1>\n

I\u2019m not perfect. But I see working with Doshi and brands like them as a step in the right direction. I believe that taking action at the corporate level against climate change and animal cruelty is something that should be applauded, and that Doshi has the right idea about it.<\/p>\n

The smell of leather will always be nostalgic for me, but that doesn\u2019t mean I have to keep contributing to its production, and it doesn\u2019t mean I can\u2019t support the innovative ways that people are learning to make it obsolete.<\/p>\n

More information about Doshi can be found at https:\/\/doshi.shop\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Cat Webling The conflicting story of a leatherworker\u2019s daughter joining forces with an innovative vegan brand. It\u2019s funny to me how life works out. It\u2019s never quite what you expect – the plans that you have don\u2019t match the outcomes, and often, what actually happens is better. I think this might be the case […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19970,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19968\/revisions\/19970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}