Fix Up, Look Sharp This Summer

Spring is here, the glow of summer is just about visible on the horizon and your wardrobe seems distinctly out of touch with the coming season: We all know the feeling. Fortunately, however, for those of an animal-friendly disposition, the brighter months are an exciting time, style-wise. Gone are the winter shop fronts full of wool, stolen right off the shivering (and usually mutilated) sheep’s backs: Say hello instead to a wealth of cruelty-free styles just waiting to complement sun-warmed skin and beach bodies.

First off, our favourite shop for the season is the hugely trendy, brilliantly affordable and superbly ethical American Apparel. This fine organisation makes all sorts of cotton and synthetic clothing – from T-shirts to track tops to, well, everything else. Check out the lamé bikinis (pictured) in metallic silver, turquoise, bronze and pink, and for the boys, some rather excellent underpants in almost every colour you can think of (pictured). American Apparel even makes a fetching little jumper for your canine chums, in case they require extra insulation on chilly days! With shops in London’s Shoreditch and Carnaby Street and a huge online catalogue, there’s no excuse not to have a browse.

With that wholehearted recommendation out of the way, we can move on to this summer’s key looks, and the big news is colour. Everywhere you look there’ll be vibrant shades (for example, see H&M’s swoonsome men’s summer simples), and our advice is to rock the freshest, brightest tones you can pull off alongside some of the season’s big, bold rock-star sunglasses. Vintage plastic framed affairs from eBay are always a good bet, and they’re easy on the pocket too. Just remember: We’re going for Keith Richards, not Timmy Mallett!

The rock ’n’ roll influence doesn’t end there, either, because summer 2006 is going to be all about two things: first, indie-style macs. Check out the range in our fave fur-free high street store, Topshop. Also worth a try are the racks of vintage stores, where you can usually pick up nicely worn originals for bargain prices – just watch out for wool linings!

Next up is a winter trend that’s still got legs, if you’ll excuse the pun: skinny-fit jeans. Jeans can, of course, pose problems to vegan sex kittens and diamond dogs, in that some manufacturers seem to want to ruin a perfectly good pair with a totally unnecessary patch of dead skin on the back. But though we’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: The papery patch on the back of 95 percent of Levi’s jeans is oilcloth, not animal hide, so they’re nearly always a good bet. Fortunately, Levi’s just brought out a new range of ladies’ slim-fits too – the 571 (pictured). Perhaps even that’s not enough – if you like your skinnies to be spray-on tight, such as we do, why not get yourself some classic black leggings from Topshop? They’re another blast from the past that’s made a comeback this year, and with no animal products, you can be dead trendy without the dead animals!

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