NEW LEAF LEATHER
Grape skin, mushroom root, pineapple leaf… you’d be forgiven for confusing what’s on the menu for AW21 with that of your local, clean-living eatery. Now fashion too is becoming plant-based. Sarah Macken introduces the new crop of non-leather alternatives.
Sarah Macken explores the new plant-based alternatives
When senior market editor at Net-a-Porter Libby Page gets dressed, a glossy pair of leather trousers is never far from her mind. Add a butter-soft calfskin pochette and some ride-or-die leather stomping boots into the mix and you’ve pretty much nailed most fashion insiders’ autumn get-dressed formula.
So, when those in a position of influence – the ones deciding what we’ll be shopping for when ideas trickle down to new-in feeds – start to make more conscious choices, it catches on. Talking about AW21 must-haves, Page names vegan leather trousers as the ultimate essential. “They’re a seasonless piece that never tires,” she says. Page wears hers “with chunky sandals and a white T-shirt for sunnier days, or with boots and a roll neck during colder months”.
It’s a feeling shared by fashion stylist Ingrid Hoey, who already has designs on how to wear Nanushka’s cream shirt in “the softest” vegan leather: “Pair it with cashmere wide-leg trousers in soft brown, Ganni track-sole boots and a striped Loewe maxi scarf,” she advises.
One “it” brand being championed by Net-a-Porter’s Vanguard sustainability scheme is Caes, a Dutch fashion label that eschews leather for a vegan iteration made from fruit. The material is called Vegea: a vegan leather that’s a by-product of the wine industry, more specifically grape skin. The brand encourages shoppers to go “full circle” and wear it going out “to your local wine bar”.
Choosing a leather alternative not only makes sense for the planet, it’s often an indicator of a kind of informed “cool” that feels not only very now, but consciously future-orientated.
It’s all part of the “non-leather” movement solidifying in the fashion world the last few seasons – something hammered home by the events of the last 18 months, namely Covid-19, the rage of global warming and the idea that “we’re in this together” when it comes to making sustainable choices.
That we’ve become more aware of the impact of farming animals for fashion is true, too; the unsettling culling of nearly 17 million mink in Denmark in late 2020, due to fears of a potential Covid mutation, was a potent reminder of the lingering disconnect between what we buy and where it comes from.
But what about who makes it? While the majority of leather pieces we shop are a by-product of the farming industry, more and more airtime is being given to the environmental impacts of leather tanneries (deforestation and the use of earth-harming chemicals) as well as the working conditions of those involved in the supply chain. Not to mention the dangers of traditional vegan leathers, or leatherettes, which up to this point have largely been made from plastics like PVC and polyurethane.
As customers become more discerning, it’s clear fashion needs a plan B. Something designer and inventor Carmen Hijosa didn’t have when she abandoned her career in leather in the 1990s, back when “sustainability” was barely a word.
“I was consulting in South America, seeing the awful working conditions of those working in tanneries, and I made a conscious decision, there and then, to end my relationship with leather,” she says.
As someone who’d forged a decades-long career working with leather goods, it wasn’t a decision the Spanish-born, now Dublin-based Hijosa took lightly. Fortunately, it was one that spurred her next move: Piñatex, a plant-based vegan leather made in the Philippines from discarded pineapple leaves.
Twelve years in the making, it was the first plant-based leather to go to market boasting a 100 per cent transparent supply chain. Now, it’s rapidly scaling so that it can be used by some of the industry’s biggest names and has already racked up an impressive roll-call of collaborators, including Chanel, Hugo Boss, H&M’s Conscious range, Adidas and, most recently, Nike.
The high street isn’t exactly lagging, either. Earlier this year, H&M announced Innovation Stories, a series of mini-collections that “push experimentation to the next level”. Highlights include a bio-based yarn derived from castor oil seeds and – fascinatingly