Velea

A brand engineered to create quality products with the look and feel of traditional leather, without inflicting cruelty on animals.

My name is Shivani, and I am the founder of Velea. That's me in the picture to the right, embarking on one of my favourite past times - a cheeky glass of Prosecco while shopping for a new expensive leather handbag which I definitely didn't need. I will admit that up till a year ago, I was an unashamed lover and collector of expensive leather handbags, leather watches, leather luggage etc. Why? Because I have always ignorantly believed that real leather was best - the quality, the feel, surely that couldn't be achieved without 'real' leather? Wrong.

It was one of those slow weeks in April 2020, I was in the middle of a global pandemic and suddenly had lots of time on my hands. I found myself wanting to use the time to just learn more about the world, and was particularly taken by how much more I could be doing to help the planet, and make more cruelty free and sustainable choices.

Whilst scrolling through articles online I came across a page showing how leather was produced. Now I'm not going to preach about all the awful things I read, I'm very much of the belief that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and lifestyle choices. But for me I decided there and then that I was going to find a more sustainble and planet friendly option.

I began looking for local suppliers of Vegan leather and ordered some swatches. And you could say the rest is history. I took the simple route of designing everyday 'leather' accessories which were Vegan. The name Velea is very simply VEgan LEAther in a shortened form.