Solution 1:

Some things have changed since I asked this question, so I will answer it myself.

With Support Library 23.4.0 the support for VectorDrawables from Ressources was reenabled: Android Support Library 23.4.0 available now

You can find more information on that in this cast from the Google I/O 2016: What's new in the support library - Google I/O 2016

You need to add this to every Activity where you want to use VectorDrawables on devices below Android 5.0 (Codename Lollipop, API level 21):

static {
    AppCompatDelegate.setCompatVectorFromResourcesEnabled(true);
}

So you can now use VectorDrawables in DrawableContainers but it can still cause some issues as mentioned in the sources above so use it with caution.

I did not reenable this feature in my app so far but I will change a lot of my icons to VectorDrawables with my next major release and will then dive deeper into this topic.

Solution 2:

As @Jahnold mentioned in the comment to question, support for loading vector drawable from an xml state xml list was removed in 23.3.

However, I found several approaches that can help.

1. Using Tint

The approach is suitable if the drawables from selected state list difference only by colors.

First, create only one vector drawable with tint and white fillColor:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<vector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:width="24dp"
    android:height="24dp"
    android:viewportWidth="24"
    android:viewportHeight="24"
    android:tintMode="multiply"
    android:tint="@color/button_tint">

    <path
        android:fillColor="#ffffff"
        android:pathData="M2.01 21L23 12 2.01 3 2 10l15 2-15 2z"/>

    <path
        android:pathData="M0 0h24v24H0z"/>

</vector>

Second, create color state list button_tint.xml placed in res/color

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:color="#555555" android:state_enabled="false"/>
    <item android:color="#6699dd"/>
</selector>

Don't forget add follow lines to build.gradle or the approach will not work on old Android versions.

defaultConfig {
    vectorDrawables.useSupportLibrary = true
}

2. Hardcode creating StateListDrawable

The approach is suitable if you use for the state list vector drawables which difference not only a color but also by a figure so you need create several different xml files. Then you can create StateListDrawable programmatically as shown in an answer.

Solution 3:

After watching What's new in the support library - Google I/O 2016 I noticed one useful method in the AppCompatResources class. This is AppCompatResources#getColorStateList(Context context, int resId). With a help of this method I've implemented selector with vector drawables. Here is my color selector file icon_selector:

<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:color="@color/red_selected" android:state_selected="true"/>
    <item android:color="@color/red_pressed" android:state_pressed="true"/>
    <item android:color="@color/red"/>
</selector>

And there is java method that returns tinted drawable:

private Drawable getTintedDrawable(@DrawableRes int drawableId) {
    Drawable drawable;
    if (android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) {
        drawable = getResources().getDrawable(drawableId, getTheme());
    } else {
        drawable = getResources().getDrawable(drawableId);
    }
    drawable = DrawableCompat.wrap(drawable);
    DrawableCompat.setTintList(drawable.mutate(), AppCompatResources.getColorStateList(this, R.color.selector_nav_bar_item_ico));
    return drawable;
}

You can use it like shown below

yourImageView.setImageDrawable(getTintedDrawable(R.drawable.ic_vector_image));