Behind the Brand: Vincente Verde
'Behind the Brand' is our latest blog series, which asks designers behind the ethical brands curated by Vegan Style more about how they began, what their influences are, what's coming next, and a whole lot more...
First up, meet Gabriel Silva, one of the brains behind Vincente Verde.
Vincente Verde is a quite fresh and new brand, what new offerings does it bring?
The idea behind Vincente Verde is to offer the best possible men's vegan shoes, with classic Italian aesthetics, but still at honest, transparent, prices.
It's really important for us to show that this is possible. Beyond the product, having a brand dedicated to this corner of the market, allows us to communicate directly with our target consumer.
As demand for ethical and vegan shoes grows, I believe VV is well positioned to help more men make conscious choices when purchasing their next pair of shoes.
Why do you think that it’s so much harder to find ethical fashion designed for men?
I think this is not something particular to men's fashion, but something that is true for ethical fashion in general.
With the market still mostly dedicated to a small, but growing niche, most brands tend to focus on products that are far reaching, which can somewhat limit the scope of how focused they can be.
Of course the market is growing, and more and more brands are being more exploratory with their collections, but at the end of the day what brings more sales and more volume is still the most "basic" shoes, so this is what tends to limit brands from going deeper into reaching a specific demographic.
What are some of the brand’s greatest aesthetic influences?
With Vincente Verde we try to stay close to classic men's shoes, either casual or dress, mostly inspired by the traditional fashion houses from Italy. While we do have our own unique creations, the inspiration still comes from these references.
How do you see men’s fashion developing in the future?
So much is changing in fashion trends these days, that's hard to predict, but of course everything comes and goes.
While fashion will most certainly be very adventurous with styles, materials and colors over the next few years, especially once the pandemic can really be referred to as something of the past, for us, it will always be important to stay true to our mission of presenting traditional options made ethically and sustainably.
Beyond just selling another pair of shoes, we really position ourselves as a brand that's an option for someone to maybe take their first step into this world of conscious consumption, so having shoes that are well understood, not too crazy, of good quality and available at fair prices is what's most important and will continue to be so into the future.
What’s your personal favourite Vincente Verde shoe?
My personal favorite is the Palermo boat shoe. This is a boat shoe that's made in the "original" way, with hand sewing and all. It was a real special thing for us to bring this product to our collection. Some years ago, before the materials we have now, it was not possible to make this shoe this way, so it's really a sign of the evolution which are experiencing in the materials that this is now possible.
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