Hi, just wondering if fuggs are vegan. As in, do they contain products made from animals?
As far as I can tell, "fuggs" is a portmanteau of "fake" and "uggs", and so fuggs are "fake" uggs, meaning fake ugg boots. Uggs or ugg boots are a kind of boots traditionally made from sheepskin/shearling, and sometimes with suede leather (cow skin) on the outside.
But there's a bit of confusion about what "fuggs" or "fake uggs" means. Unlike something such as "faux fur" or "faux/fake leather", where it's pretty clear that will be vegan and not made from animals like the traditional kind is, "ugg" has some weird brand authenticity thing going on.
I might get some facts wrong here, but from what I could gather, there are 2 companies, called "UGG" (American brand) and "UGG Since 1974" (Australian brand) which both lay some kind of claim to what can be considered an authentic ugg boot. Uggs were first made in Australia, but I think the American UGG brand often sues other companies, including those in Australia, for using the "ugg" name. However in some places ugg simply means the style of shoe rather than the brand.
So unfortunately due to this, I think there might be 2 different meanings of "fuggs" - one I believe indeed means vegan ugg boots which don't use animal skins/products, while the other meaning is simply an ugg boot made in the traditional way from animals but just not by the "official" UGG brand.
In all this confusion, how can we truly answer the question of "Are fuggs vegan?" Is the answer somewhere between "They could be, sometimes." or "No one knows, really." ?
I agree that most currsnt fake leather is not durable enough. Many of the newest vegan leathers are made from plants. They still aren't very durable, but at least they're not plastic.
I appreciate the sentiment but even if everyone will have their pets flayed after they die (and they should die young enough for the leather to be of high quality), this won't satisfy the global demand for leather.
My best guess (predicting the future is hard) for a proper solution is for plant-based or precision-fermented (or something else that is sustainable and has low energy needs) leathers to become better. To get there, they need R&D which costs money. So maybe buying very specific types of non-durable clothing is net positive, if it gets us closer to a good leather alternative.
Also, look up energy costs of production of plastic products vs plant-based. Plastic is not that bad for the environment if it is properly disposed of and not thrown straight into a river. I know plastic bags need many thousands of times less energy and water for production than cotton bags. Not sure how it is for leather but don't just assume "plastic = bad". It's not that simple.
Also, leather uses plastic coating. A fact many people don't know. It's also dead flesh that's been heavily preserved with chemicals in order to not decompose and to remain usable. It's far from the natural product people would have us believe. Keep in mind the massive size of the industry and propaganda similar to the meat and dairy industries which it's directly connected to.
I totally forgot! Which is ironic because the street I live is named something that translates to "stinky water". It used to be a bit outside the city and was where leather was made hundreds of years ago. The water was smelly due to all the dirty chemicals involved. Leather production has always been a gross ordeal with dead skins and smelly chemicals. But it feels clean to us now. How weird is that??