Is Demonia Ethical?

If you like funky, gothic yet trendy fashions then there are plenty of options regarding clothes and accessories. But one thing that will remain your fashion incomplete is a matching pair of shoes. So are you considering buying some edgy fun boots to finally embrace your gothic or edgy mood? When looking for shoes, you can get big block heel boots, strap heels, neon’s, and so much more. Then you must have thought of Demonia Cult already.

But wait, before ordering pair or two, have you considered the aspect of the moral value they possess? Or is their product nature friendly? As a responsible citizen, you should know that you don’t just buy for yourself, they are for planet Earth too. You simply bought has a chain of consequences before bending on your foot. So let’s find out if Demonia is an ethical footwear brand that you can trust.

Key Takeaways

• Demonia is a Southern California-based alternative gothic and funky type footwear seller since 1993.
• Demonia Cult keeps silent regarding its manufacturing condition and supply chain management ethics. It is a big reason to call this brand ‘non-ethical’.
• Many brands tend to greenwash customers by selling non-vegan products marketed as vegan. Non-vegan leather products are often influenced to slaughter animals which are condemned by vegans.

Demonia Cult: Its History and Popularity

Demonia Cult, a 1993-founded alternative footwear company situated in Southern California, offers a wide selection of edgy, gothic, weird boots and other similar footwear. Demonia is renowned for its quirky platform boots, which are offered on its website in a variety of styles.

Genre and Arrangement

Demonia, the very name contains the devil and it aims to define the alternative fashion market with its products that even non-gothic lovers may find surprising. Additionally, Demonia offers subsidiary brands like Pleaser, Bordello, Funtasma, and Demonia shoes, all of which advertise that they have a collection of alternatively designed and made vegan shoes at a reasonable price.

Reason for Popularity

Demonia has grown a massive popularity over time due to its vast collections of shoes. Their other specialty is that they don’t target any type of targeted audience while making the shoes. Rather they tend to open the design and size segment for all races, colors, and ages. Their mission is to deliver specialty footwear for many subcultures by innovating new styles and redefining older ones.

Demonia Cult: Are They Ethical?

Demonia Cult has been a craze among alternatively fashion senses customers. But there is a question regarding Demonia Cults’ ethicality in fields of material sourcing, labor laws implemented in production, sustainability, and overall customer satisfaction. Below are some of the indexes based on which we will try to elaborate on the ethicality of Demonia.

Transparency

The most common characteristic of an unethical brand is that they tend to be silent regarding every perspective other than marketing and selling. Major issues like their source of material acquisition, where and how they make their shoes, or their initiatives towards a better-sustained world are great points to identify them as an ethical or unethical brand. Sadly, Demonia has been keeping its mouth shut regarding providing any of this information. Our point is, if you claim yourself as an ethical brand then why feel insecure about releasing them for customers’ better understanding and positive impression towards you?

So that is a straight demerit point for not keeping transparency.

Sweatshop

Most of the big brands have a vast supply chain and tend to outsource their products from countries like China and other third-world countries. There comes the term ‘Sweatshop’, which means when workers are pressurized to work in unhealthy working conditions for long hours and thus so with lower wages than they deserved to get paid. China and other third-world country have tons of non-certified manufacturers who make products at a cheap cost and even sweatshop their workers with even less wages. They are acknowledged by brands like Demonia but for more profit, they tend to be quiet about these injustices.

There is no authentic information published by Demonia Cult regarding their product manufacturing facilities and suppliers. Thus it is suspicious that they have a hand in Sweat shopping while sourcing their products.

Vegan Leather

One unethical method implemented by common unethical brands is that they tend to provide false statements about their products a lot. Demonia claims that they use vegan leather to produce their shoes. As mentioned earlier, they don’t keep minimal transparency thus there are no sufficient clues about the authenticity of their claims.

Child Labor

Due to their lack of transparency regarding how the shoes are made, and using which materials, it is hard to determine some things. While we know that Demonia shoes are sourced from Chinese factories it is also unknown if these factories comply with human rights, labor laws, and fair pay rules imposed by respective International Organizations. It is very hard to believe that Demonia does not take advantage of child labor and other forms of forced labor in other countries because of the secrecy around its process.

Allegedly, Demonia has been trying to improve its face regarding preventing child labor or forced labor but they don’t provide information on their initiatives in detail.

Partnership With Unethical Brands

If you are an ethical brand, in terms of any collaboration you will look for similar ethics brands. As mentioned earlier, those who follow funky and gothic type clothing fashion need similar types of gothic shoes in their possession for matching. Thus Demonia made a collaboration with unethical brands like Dolls Kill and Killstar. Moreover, the Dolls Kill website promotes Demonia shoes. This makes sense as it needs similar values to collaborate in between to spread a fashion.

Is Demonia Sustainable?

The vegan emblem is used in Demonia’s product descriptions to indicate that they utilize vegan leather to produce their boots. However, there is no evidence to support that assertion. The brand is utterly opaque and exceedingly private.

Additionally, Demonia sneakers have received a lot of criticism in recent years for being made using subpar materials and being of poor quality. Customers lament that after only a few months of use, their Demonia shoes are already falling off. Another concern is the price paid for them. When compared to the subpar quality given, many remark that the shoes are expensive.

So, it is also a straight No for Demonia as a sustainable brand.

Greenwashing: Cruelty-Free?

Greenwashing is a marketing strategy where you claim your products to be vegan when they are not. Demonia Shoes seem to be doing that as they don’t have enough evidence against their claim to use vegan leather to build their products. Though they have a small icon at the bottom of their product pages. But they lack any related publishable certification regarding this.

There is also suspension regarding the feather they use in their products. It is legal to use such authentic material in shoes for design purposes but it has to be done without cruelty. Many brands use the live plucking method from birds, and swans to keep the source alive.

Cruelty-free has been a major issue for customers as they prefer to buy things that aren’t made by doing any damage to the animals, particularly the materials which influence poachers and animal hunters to kill more animals.

Is Demonia Legit?

Though there is various doubt and suspiciousness regarding Demonia’s various claims due to their lack of transparency, it is well assuring that Demonia is indeed a legit and actual brand. As of today, they are somewhat popular among customers for their product variations and alternative designs. Though there are some complaints regarding their ethical code of conduct and its implementations people still do order from them and get delivered the same on time.

The recent issue that has surged among customers is the declining quality issue of various products. Though the complaints may be from just random personal dissatisfactions still Demonia has a long to cover up the allegations regarding product sourcing and supply chain management. So do order with caution.

Demonia Alternatives

Though Demonia Cult has well established itself as a popular gothic shoes brands due to its lack of transparency it has left a few question marks regarding its vegan leather and supply chain. So if are looking for any other ethical alternatives for buying a pair of alternative shoes then here they are:

Good Goth

Good Goth carries a large range of plus-sized Gothic and Alternative Shoes and Boots for all gender. They are USA based brand selling online shoes since 1996. Interestingly, their owner is marked as ‘Vegetarian’, meaning vegan leather and other materials are used obviously. A silly drawback though is that they don’t ship footwear products outside the USA.

Tragic Beautiful

Tragic Beautiful has been in the business since 2006 and runs on the motto ‘Sustainable, Fair and Ethical’. They have a pretty decent sustainable and fair supply chain portfolio. They are an Australia-based company and try to manufacture shoes using as many as possible local small manufacturers.

Koi Footwear

KOI Footwear is a PETA-approved 100% vegan show company. They have an overall customer rating of 4 out of 5. About 70 – 85% of purchases made ended satisfactorily. They are great initiatives regarding the use of recycled material for shoe packaging. They also have social responsibility named ‘Soles4Souls’ for collecting and donating shoes to each other.

FAQs

Final Thoughts

Nowadays, consumers just don’t buy products sensing their needs and price. They also take another ethical issue in mind while judging a brand to give it a GO. Just like clothing, people tend to follow the same for shoes too. Demonia Cult has been a popular one among gothic and funky-styled people. While their shoes claim to be vegan and cruelty-free but it is still suspicious regarding their lack of transparency and show of certifications against their claim. Thus customers should start to get diverted to other ethical brands. So as of now, it should be concluded that Demonia is a fast-fashioned brand that lacks to adhere ethicality at its core.