Oh readers, how we adore you.
The eagle-eyed Genevieve tipped us off to this part of that recent interview with Natalie Portman when she talked about her vegan shoes:
[S]he has the reputation for being the most elegant of young actresses, and, yes, she has a jade cashmere sweater, skinny blue jeans, a check coat that ties smartly at her tiny waist. But she’s also wearing big, green, deeply inelegant wellies, because she has found the cheaper a shoe is, the more likely it is to be vegan. Hence her launch of a shoe line for Te Casan, with all profits going to the Nature Conservancy.
Cashmere is the wool that comes from cashmere goats and is known for its luxurious feel and high cost — but it’s a decidedly nonvegan source of clothing fibers. You’d think a Harvard grad would know this.
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I’m pretty sure that “Vegan Studies” are not included in the general education schedule of Harvard or any other university for that matter. Being a “Harvard grad” has nothing to do with one’s aptitude to discriminating what is vegan and what is not.
I didn’t go to Harvard here’s how you discriminate between what is vegan and what is not. Ready? Vegans don’t use anything that comes from animals. Normal people do. There I just saved you $200,000 in tuitions.
Lady AC is right: being a Harvard grad doesn’t necessarily make you smart or informed.
Granted it may not be vegan, but cashmere doesn’t harm the animal it comes from – it’s like any wool, it is shaved and grows back. So it’s not exactly the same as wearing fur or leather, is it?
I don’t get the hypocrisy here… So she wears non-vegan clothing – so what?
Did she ever say she only wears vegan clothing or something?
SillyBilly — Congratulations. You’ve just articulated a great argument for why self-professed vegans should make an exception for milk and eggs. Good luck trying to convince PETA.
SillyBilly and Matt, part of veganism is not wearing clothing that comes from animals, including wool and silk. So as a vegan, she’s not playing by the rules, but she’s trying to make money off of those who do by selling her vegan shoes.
But I thought Natalie Portman wasn’t a vegan?
http://www.ecorazzi.com/2007/11/27/natalie-portman-has-no-plans-to-go-vegan/
So I still don’t see the hypocrisy… If I were to write a vegetarian cook book, while not being a vegetarian myself (say I occasionally eat fish), would that make me a hypocrite, because I’m making money of those who ARE vegetarians? I don’t think it would – unless I claimed to be a vegetarian anyway, or said I’d never eat fish. IMHO.
I saw the Ecorazzi post too, but Goveg.com, Happycow.net, and Vegansociety.com all list her on their celebrity vegan pages. So it seems sometimes she is and sometimes she isn’t.
OK, fair enough.
Hey, just because the interviewer noted that he/she THOUGHT the sweater was cashmere does not make it so. There are a lot of synthetic sweaters out there made to look like and feel like cashmere, just like there is synthetic silk for shirts and synthetic leather for shoes. I think this is really a case of the reporter getting it wrong. Natalie Portman seems to be very careful about her diet and her wardrobe, so I think we should look at this as reporter error and not her conscious choice to wear cashmere.
Actually, most vegans say that shearing wool from sheep or cashmere from goats does harm the animal. Yes the wool or fur grows back but it is not the natural time for them to shed. Often it is done when it is cold out and many of the animals die because there is not enough care taken to make sure they stay warm. Also some get wounds from the shearing process which can become infected. Finally the animals undergo the same procedures as most slaughterhouses- dehorning, docking, and castration without painkillers. Conditions for mass production of the wool or fur are not good- overcrowding, poor diet, etc. All in all if you say you are vegan be vegan. Or else people who may have been inspired by you lose that desire themselves and see you as a hypocrite. Now I now I am condradicting myself but cut her a little slack! At least she is trying to make a difference.
She wears animal products all the time. Silk, wool and leather too. She wants the credit of being vegan but is just a hipster trying to look cool. Many celebs do it. Just a rare thing to find one site amoungst the millions to catch it.