Vivaia vs. Rothy’s: Which is Better and More Affordable?

Vivaia vs. Rothy’s: Which is Better and More Affordable? Are you planning to buy a pair of eco-friendly shoes and cannot decide between Vivaia and Rothy’s? Look no further, as I did intense research to provide you with all the information you need to help you choose the best shoe brand that offers both stylish and practical footwear. So step in to see what is all about these two sustainable shoe brands!

Vivaia vs. Rothy’s? This has been one of the top questions on the lips of fashionistas in recent years. Almost everyone wants to know what each of these brands offer. Which is more sustainable? Which is more affordable? And other questions that will help them update their closets with the most fashionable shoes. If you are eagerly scrolling through this article for an answer or an overall insight into what Vivaia and Rothy’s are, I have you covered!

What is the Vivaia Fashion Brand About?

With its mission to positively affect both women’s fashion and the earth, Vivaia is gradually making its mark on the fashion scene for its stylish and sustainable shoes. Vivaia, pronounced ‘viv-vah-yah’, launched in 2020, which makes them a pretty new brand, yet the fact that they are being compared to Rothy’s already shows how trustworthy their products are. Their shoes are comfortable and chic, combining modern technologies with sustainable materials.

The brand is accessible in over sixty-one countries and in just three years, has won over three hundred and sixty thousand customers, with their social media followed by over a million internet users. They prioritize their flats collection but also present chunky heels and wedges, amongst other shoe designs. This page provides a very detailed review of Vivaia and the shoes that I purchased from their store.

What is the Rothy’s Fashion Brand About?

Rothy’s products are also built with eco-friendly materials, which is one of the major reasons why it is placed in the same category as Vivaia’s. However, when the London-based brand launched Vivaia in 2020, Rothy’s had been in the business eight years earlier since they launched in 2012. Rothy’s shoes are marketed to be made with 3D knitting technology with handcrafted assembly.

For years, this has appealed to women who love careful detailing on their accessories, growing their Instagram account to almost half a million followers. Their shoes range between sneakers and loafers that are remarkable for day-to-day activities.

The Similarities Between Vivaia and Rothy’s

The reason why these brands are frequently mentioned side by side is their close similarities. Taking note of these similarities often helps customers decide which of their differences are deal-breakers and which the customers can overlook. These similarities are:

They both are sustainable

As mentioned earlier, Vivaia and Rothy’s prioritize sustainable fashion. If sustainability is a big priority of yours when seeking brands to patronize, both will serve as reliable go-to’s. Vivaia boasts that the brand has recycled over six million bottles by 2023 while Rothy’s has a record of one hundred and eight million single-use bottles reused to recreate their footwear. The numbers are staggering but only show their commitment to their visions of protecting the earth.

The bottles are chipped and spun into threads before being knitted into the comfy tops of the shoes they offer. Rothy’s also has a goal to achieve a closed-loop production by 2023. This means that post-consumer waste on the footwear is gathered and reused to resume the process of constructing more shoes.

Both focus on flat shoes

Lovers of ballet flats make up a good percentage of the customers raving over Vivaia and Rothy’s goods. And this is because while one of these brands provides an array of shoes, both deliver on designing alluring and comfortable flat shoes! Their flat shoes range in colors, sizes, textures, designs, and patterns to ensure there is something for every one of their customers.

While many other brands prioritize stilettoes and heeled footwear, Vivaia and Rothy’s prioritize flats. This still provides them with a wide target market since the majority of women wear flat shoes more frequently than heeled shoes, which are typically reserved for special occasions. Vivaia and Rothy’s understand that flat shoes are dynamic and wearable to school, work, get-togethers, errands, meetings, and virtually any other activity you can think of!

Their designs are geared in a similar direction

People commonly ask if Vivaia and Rothy’s shoes aren’t the same. And while they aren’t, it’s understandable that someone would confuse them since the shoes look similar. When you browse through their products, especially on their sites, you might notice how both brands favor pointed-toe designs, quickly followed by the round-toe shape.

Apart from the toe designs, which are quite common with most flat shoes, the shoes also have similar aesthetics. The color tones tilt more toward pastels that are fluid and match almost every outfit. This means that visually speaking, one is not necessarily better than the other, and customers can interchange the brands based on that feature.

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Both are machine washable

For shoe lovers who do not favor manually scrubbing your ballet flats, it would please you to know that shoes from Vivaia and Rothy’s can easily be tossed into your washing machine for a good wash. Although both hold up differently after time in a washing machine, hence their guidelines should be read!

Vivaia vs. Rothy’s

Now that we’ve looked at what Vivaia and Rothy’s are and their similarities, let us plunge into their differing strengths and weaknesses to determine which of the brand takes the trophy for style and accessibility!

Footwear Variety

Vivaia provides footwear to suit a variety of tastes. Their stores present ballet flats, chunky heeled shoes, pointed-toe sandals, wedge shoes, slides, and a few more options. This means that beyond upgrading your flats collection, you browse at Vivaia and purchase multiple other styles for your wardrobe. This saves time and energy since you can drift in the same store to meet your different needs instead of hopping from store to store!

Rothy’s, on the flip side, only designs loafers and sneakers, which gives their customers a smaller assortment to select from. With their signature shoes specific to certain buyers, their brand is less encompassing than Vivaia’s. Now, the pro is that their focus on specific goods doubtlessly means that they present those in one of the best qualities seen in the market. The downside is that customers will need to find other stores that will cater to additional footwear needs.

Generally speaking, for women who stand on the shorter side and prefer heeled shoes for added height, or women who like to balance out their flat shoes collection with high heels, Vivaia takes the ribbon here for variety. Rothy’s stores, on the other hand, are not as encompassing.

Color Variety

Since we have glanced through the types of Vivaia and Rothy’s footwear, let’s explore the design variety. Rothy’s holds the trophy in this category with shoes of almost every color and pattern you can envision. Raspberry pink, tiger skin patterns, deep ocean blue, cognac brown, cypress green, daffodil yellow, and so many more! If you are a flat shoe aficionado that adores variation, Rothy’s is, without a doubt, the store to shop for you.

Vivaia is not as flexible with its hues and patterns. Most of the hues you will find in Vivaia stores, you’ll also find in Rothy’s stores. But you won’t find half the hues and patterns Rothy’s offers in the Vivaia collections.

Depth of Sustainability

Vivaia states that they collaborate with a factory that makes plastic bottles into thread that is woven with wool to create their upper shoe parts. These plastic bottles are gathered from a curated number of factories and suppliers who also prioritize sustainability as they process plastics initially discarded in the oceans.

They clean the bottles thoroughly to clear out filth and germs, and then their cutting machine chips them into flakes and converts them into threads. The threads are arranged in a 3D machine, specifically creating Vivaia designs shoe uppers. In addition to the plastic bottles, the wool they utilize is a premium, renewable material from healthy sheep.

Vivaia also states that their company constantly seeks new ways to increase the eco-friendliness of their products. An example is the heel area on their Stella collection, which is crafted with Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), an eco-friendly plastic that fans of Legos will be familiar with.

Apart from their shoes, Vivaia also expands their sustainable practices to include the packaging used to deliver them. 100% recycled cardboard is sourced to create the box.

The above sounds great, but what gets many brows raised is that despite having its headquarters in London, Vivaia produces its shoes in a Chinese factory. It’s common knowledge that some factories abroad have poor work practices that negatively affect the laborers. But, if you visit Vivaia’s website, you’ll see they have taken the time to explain why they chose the factory in China for their products and the standards they assessed before deciding to produce their shoes there.

Some of these considerations include environmental impact, employee treatment, and working conditions. They also add that since the factory utilizes machines for most of the creation process, waste is kept at a minimum.

Rothy’s fashion brand practices its sustainability by adhering to circularity. On their website, they define their view of circularity as an unbroken ring of production that feeds itself, going from making products to recycling them and then using the recycled materials to create other products. Their rather ambitious vision is to utilize materials that have been exploited twice over, to manufacture their newer products and keep the loop close.

An upper hand they have over Vivaia in this aspect is that Rothy’s owns their factory. This means there is close and first-hand monitoring of the production process to ensure every manufactured batch of shoes follows environmental standards. It also makes their sustainable practice more believable since they exercise it themselves.

Another impressive sustainability practice by Rothy’s is its efforts to keep its products out of landfills. Therefore, since September 2022, they’ve invited customers to recycle old Rothy’s at their retail stores and recycle them. Here you can see Rothy’s store location.

These items will be repurposed into newer products, bringing them closer to attaining circular production, while you, the consumer, can get a discount on your next purchase. Besides single-used bottles, Rothy’s uses other sustainable materials, including algae-based foams, hemp fiber, marine plastics, and natural rubber.

Clearly, both brands put deep thought and a fair effort into being ethical but from the above information, Rothy’s ecological efforts go a step beyond Vivaia’s. As much as Vivaia recycles bottles into shoes, once those shoes wear out and are discarded, they will ultimately become a landfill. But Rothy’s efforts to recollect and repurpose their shoe material show stronger sustainable exercise.

Comfort and Convenience

Vivaia and Rothy’s prioritize comfort for their customers with breathable fabrics that are especially pleasant in summer. This is key, considering flat shoes are most people’s comfort shoes. No one wants to acquire a pair of loafers that is inconvenient for any reason. Here are some of the features from both brands that ultimately constitute comfort.

Arch support: Vivaia shoes come with arch support, which are paddings inserted into footwear to support your foot’s curve and reduce, or completely prevent, aches after walking in it for a while. A good arch support will, on a broader scale, set your feet in the best position and ideally balance your body.

Vivaia shoes provide this balance and make strenuous treks bearable. Rothy’s shoes, though are mostly flat and do not provide sturdy arch supports. This means they do not deliver 100% shock absorbance. For people with medical conditions that require arch support to reduce or prevent foot pain, Rothy’s may not be the most suitable option for you.

Sole thickness: The benefits of thick soles cannot be understated in shoes! The last thing you want is to feel gravel pushing into your feet as you traipse down the street or to feel the hotness or coldness of the ground whenever you step out.

Vivaia shoes are dense with lush insoles that keep your feet snug and protected. They give you a little extra bounce in your step due to their thickness. Rothy’s, however, while elegantly designed to be flexible, come with softer footbeds. Therefore, their soles are thick but do not quite inspire the same level of confidence Vivaia soles do.

Size: It is common practice to add or reduce a few cm in size when ordering a shoe to ensure you purchase the right fit. As I mentioned in this detailed review of Vivaia shoes, if you have wide feet, you should get a pair of shoes with a square or round-toe design and one size bigger. Also, as soon as you receive the shoes, wear them around the house for a few hours to see if they break in. If not, you can return them or ask to change the shoe style.

In slightly smaller sizes, Rothy’s shoes are similar to Vivaia. So my advice from above applies to Rothy’s shoes too.

Breaking in: The longer you wear a shoe, the more it breaks in until it feels made just for you. However, some shoes can take longer to break in, which means that total comfort may elude you for an extended period until they do.

Due to their stretchy nature, Vivaia shoes break in faster than Rothy’s and, combined with their arch support and extra padding, are delightful shoes to move around in. Since Rothy’s are built to be firmer, they can take a while to break in, which might result in blisters or foot aches after long days.

Affordability

At the end of the day, affordability will be the deal breaker for most customers. If a brand’s costs exceed your shoe budget, it does not matter if they offer a broader range of colors or footwear. You’ll have to prioritize the brand with more affordable prices. The good news is that both brands sell their shoes within a close enough range!

Vivaia shoes cost from $90 – $140. In Rothy’s stores, apart from the shoes on sale, their prices range from $120 – $170. The pro is that the products are long-lasting and make great investments!

Alternatives Shoe Brands To Vivaia and Rothy’s

Other sustainable shoe brands to meet similar quality needs include the following:

Cariuma

Cariuma prices range between $80 – $130, crafting eco-friendly shoes that are said to leave little carbon footprints. The sneakers are manufactured with recycled material and organic cotton, with their IBI collection being fully vegan. You can purchase shoes in white, grey, peach, blue, and many more fascinating tones from this brand.

REI

REI is a brand that designs footwear for women, men, and children. Its shoes are a great substitute for Rothy’s sneakers and cater to outdoor lovers. REI sells its own shoes, as well as other brands’ shoes that align with their ethical visions.

Sanuk

If you’re seeking a much cheaper alternative to Vivaia and Rothy’s, Sanuk footwear prices from $35 – $85. From sandals to palms, the shoes are water-friendly and machine washable. They are also comfortable, resilient, and ethical!

Final words

Did you find this comparison between Vivaia and Rothy’s helpful? Do you already have a pair of shoes from any of these brands? Or are you planning on buying some eco-friendly shoes and don’t know which brand to choose? Remember, only buy whatever you decide if you really need that item.