Vegan Interior Design – How to Feather Your Nest Without Feathers
Picture this: after learning how animals suffer for food and clothing, you’ve cleared your fridge of all meat, eggs, and dairy and your wardrobe of all animal skin, wool, silk, and feathers. (Fur, of course, has long been passé, anyhow).
Now, though, you look around your home and realise just how covered in cruelty a couch can be, how much trauma can fill a bedspread, and how rough a wool carpet feels now that you know how violently sheep are sheared.
It’s time to overhaul your home to create the vegan abode of your dreams. But where to begin?
We’ve got you. Here’s our guide to vegan interiors—what’s cool, what’s cruel, and how you can style your space without harming a hair on an animal’s head!
How Are Interiors Not Cruelty-Free?
From leathery lounges to down-filled pillows and furry rugs, the products of animal suffering can furnish a home faster than the Queer Eye crew if you’re not careful.
Co-products of the meat industry, animals’ skins, fleece, and feathers, are widely found in furnishings because animal use industries are determined to squeeze every dollar from an animal’s life. Far from innocuous, animal-based homewares carry the same ethical and environmental issues as meat.
Leather
Smelly, hot, and sticky in summer, furniture made from animal skin feels as gross as the process of creating it is. The global leather trade kills more than a billion animals each year, with most operations placed in India and China, where already-low animal welfare standards are barely regulated. Cows, goats, sheep, horses and even cats and dogs are confined to filthy factory farms, subject to gruelling ‘death marches’ to slaughter and sometimes skinned while still alive. Who could relax on furniture with that horrible history?
Wool
Wool is common in carpets, rugs, throws, and blankets, but it’s far from warm and fuzzy. PETA entities have so far released 15 damning exposés of over 150 wool industry operations on four continents, revealing workers beating, kicking, and throwing sheep and sewing their gaping wounds shut without pain relief. When sheep are no longer profitable, they’re sent to slaughter to have their throats slit, and many become victims of the horrific live export trade.
Fur
Fur has fallen out of fashion on the runways but sometimes seeps into homewares. Animals on fur factory farms are confined to small filthy pens and sometimes go mad with boredom, chewing off their own limbs. When the time comes to skin them, they’re electrocuted or bludgeoned and sometimes even skinned alive. Unethical practices within the industry also mean mislabelling is common, meaning you could unwittingly buy dog or cat fur. No matter whose fur it is, a throw isn’t worth their pain!
Feathers and Down
For their feathers to fill quilts and pillows, birds are intensively farmed and either painfully live-plucked or slaughtered before having their feathers removed. Multiple PETA Asia investigations have revealed live plucking of birds, even for items misleadingly labelled “responsible” down. Investigative footage from Vietnam even shows workers cutting off the feet of live birds, while PETA Germany footage from Poland shows birds lifting their heads, even after their throats are slit, due to improper stunning.
Don’t Forget Animal Testing!
It’s not just furnishings to consider when making over your home. Household products like paint often contain products taken from animals, like shellac (made from crushed beetles’ bodies), and chemicals that are routinely tested on animals. So you don’t end up with a pistachio feature wall that’s more of a puke green, look for vegan and cruelty-free brands, like Tint.
Many animal-free brands are also “low VOC” (fewer chemical fumes), meaning you can breathe easier in all ways!
What Are Vegan Interiors?
Plant Wools
People are increasingly looking for natural, animal-free fibres to keep them cosy. Plant wools, such as jute, Sisal, cotton, hemp, and even recycled plastic bottles, allow people to indulge in soft furnishings without harming sheep.
Unlike woollen rugs, those made from cotton are also machine washable, meaning even the messiest companion animals can enjoy them too (and you don’t have to worry when your glass of Shiraz tips over)!
Plant Leathers
Cactus, wine, fruit— all these plants and more can be turned into luxurious, baby-soft vegan leathers! For example, M+Co Living offers stylish chairs and sofas in vegan leather made from apple skins, which limits produce waste while being climate-friendly and sparing cows.
Bio and “Faux” Fur
Not many Aussies want to bring furry wares into their homes, given our average temperatures, but if you love the Scandi look, go faux. You can find fluffy alternatives made from all kinds of materials (and loads of pre-loved items for an extra smooch to Mother Earth), and innovation in this space is unstoppable. French faux fur artisans Ecopel have led the way in creating Flur, a fully animal-free, plastic-free vegan fur and there’s also BioFluff, a vegan fur made from hemp, flax, and nettles.
Down and Feather Upgrades
If laying your head on a pillow stuffed with suffering gives you nightmares, you’re not alone. Retailers now offer plenty of bird-free feather upgrades, from sustainable bamboo to plastic bottles scooped from the sea!
For soft pillows that won’t go flat and decorative cushions that hold their “chop,” check out MicroCloud, a hypoallergenic, machine-washable choice.
Finishing Flourishes
Consider animals when adding the final decorative touches to your home, too! Pampas grass makes a gorgeous alternative to tall feathers, soy candles are kinder than those made of beeswax, and a few well-placed vegan messages, like a print from vegan artist Jo Fredricks, never go astray.
Help! I Have No ‘Eye’ For Design!
If styling a home isn’t your forte, don’t fret. Superstar designer Aline Dürr’s website and book, Vegan Interior Design, are a treasure trove of tips and tricks to make your space peaceful and chic.
A talented Sydney-based consultant, Aline can even teach you how to style like a pro with her Vegan Interior Design courses or even peep your space and design a contemporary, cosy, and cruelty-free abode just for you!
Help Animals from The Comfort of Home
Now that you’re sitting pretty on your vegan couch, ensconced in a down-free doona, why not visit the PETA Action Centre?
There, you can take a moment to sign some change-making petitions, write to those in power about their use of animals, or join the PETA Action Team to get involved in our exciting and powerful work for animals!
Help Animals in 2026: Renew Your PETA Membership!
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