Can makers rethink leather for the future?

‘When I first began working with leather I was completely captivated – it was the most intriguing and beautiful material I’d ever worked with,’ says Alice Robinson of pioneering leather producer Grady + Robinson. ‘I’d been studying Fashion Womenswear at the Royal College of Art, and it was assumed that we’d most likely work with leather because of its quality and versatility, as well as it being synonymous with luxury handbags.

Visiting wholesalers in London at the time, she found an extensive range of different leathers to work with but questioned their provenance. ‘I wasn’t satisfied with the partial answers I was getting,’ she says. ‘There was an abundant choice of styles, but never the option to choose based on knowledge of the farming practices behind them. I became interested in how materials could retain information about their agricultural origins and how that could influence the perception of their value.’

Grady + Robinson claims to be the first supplier of British-made leather that is traceable to cattle raised on regenerative farms. Its cattle hides come from sources certified by the Pasture for Life association, which champions the benefits of grazing animals this way – including better land stewardship, soil carbon sequestration, increased biodiversity, animal welfare and ecosystem resilience. Grady + Robinson’s leather is made using a traditional tanning process and natural finishing methods, and all production takes place in the UK. The leather has recently been used by brands such as the shoemakers Carréducker and luxury goods label Mulberry.

Co-founder Sara Grady is a sustainable farming expert. ‘For me, it began when I was part of Glynwood, a non-profit organisation that practises regenerative agriculture and works to advance local food production in New York’s Hudson Valley,’ she says. ‘I saw first-hand how such farms dedicate enormous care and resources to raising animals ecologically and humanely. I also learned how well-managed grazing can benefit soil and ecosystems, while also producing healthy food for people.’

Grady and Robinson are among a new crop of pioneers rethinking the production of leather, responding to a growing discomfort with the way we raise and treat animals, and the impact of livestock farming on the environment. Leather, by definition, refers to treated animal skin: the most commonly used hides come from cattle, pig, buffalo, sheep and goat, but in the luxury sector there has also been a sustained demand for snake, seal, alligator and ostrich.

In its most basic form, this animal hide is processed in three steps: preparation, tanning and crusting (hair-removal). Today, the preparation process of soaking, tanning, thinning, dyeing, softening, coating and polishing mostly involves chemicals that can be toxic to humans, particularly workers involved in the manufacturing process, and the environment when not disposed of safely, often polluting water systems.

In recent years, as the demand for climate action and concerns around animal welfare and social impact have grown louder, leather has become increasingly contentious. More than half the world’s supply of raw leather comes from developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, which are also bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. Extensive rearing of livestock has severe environmental impacts such as deforestation, water and land overuse, and gas emissions. The clearing of the Amazon for cattle-ranching, including for leather, is contributing to climate change. Around 1.4 billion hides and skins of animals were used in global leather production in 2020 , according to the industry body Textile Exchange’s 2021 report.

Amid this over-farming, over-consumption and over-production, consumers are turning away. It’s a movement that fashion, design and accessories brands can’t ignore, and producers of this age-old material are becoming increasingly innovative. In 2021, fashion designer Anya Hindmarch, who in 2007 launched a collection of canvas bags adorned with the phrase ‘I Am Not A Plastic Bag’, unveiled Return to Nature, a range of bags made of biodegradable leather. The result of two years of research, its process doesn’t use chrome, heavy metals, aldehyde or polyurethane coating; it is tanned instead by zeolite, finished with liquid silk, and breaks down nearly as quickly as untanned skin.

Grady + Robinson’s approach to transparency, animal welfare and regenerative agriculture is shared by Britain’s only remaining oak bark tannery, J &FJ Baker & Co, which uses hides from nearby farms that are by-products of the local meat industry. Run by the same family for six generations at a site in Devonshire that has been a tannery since the Roman times, it has perfected its technique over centuries. It makes use of sustainably coppiced English oak bark that is peeled, dried, and ground before being used to make the fibre composition of the hide as tight and as waterproof as possible.

Unlike most leather production, this process produces no toxins and minimises waste: the water used is recycled, while the residue bark is composted for gardening and the hydrated lime that is used in the process is also returned to the soil. ‘People today are much more interested in asking constructive questions about where and how their products are made,’ observes Andrew Parr, managing director of the heritage brand. The leather is now used by the likes of London-based artist Frances Pinnock (members can read a profile of her in Crafts, July/August 2021) and Wrexham-based bespoke furniture workshop Silverlining Furniture, as well as a range of saddlers, shoemakers and interior designers.

There are other sources of skin with lower impact than cattle: pirarucu leather, for example, is a beautifully textured alternative made from waste fish skin. In the past, pirarucu, a species of arapaima native to the basin of the Amazon River, has been fished for food and the skin discarded, but Brazilian tannery Nova Kaeru, has been working to transform it into a luxury material, with a keen eye on its environmental impact. The production of this material generates income for the Indigenous communities that make it – a reminder that traditional craft practices are often people's livelihoods, and therefore cannot simply be swept away by contemporary ethical concerns without consequences.

The practices of these businesses point to a possible future for leather. ‘The conversation has to centre on regeneratively farmed, fully traceable skins and responsible tanning processes ,’ says Amanda Johnston, curator of the Future Fabrics Expo, a sourcing platform for sustainable materials. Yet, as consumers question the sources of their materials, they are often led away from animal products entirely – the concerns driving people to veganism can never be fully addressed by producers who continue to use them. A 2022 report by the Material Innovation Initiative showed that 55% of consumers want to purchase alternatives to leather because of the material’s impact on animals and the environment.

Many brands and makers are responding with plant-based alternatives made from algae, mycelium (mushrooms) and bacteria alongside leather that are the by-product of the non-animal food and agricultural sector. For example, in 2015, Ananas Anam (based in London and Spain) launched Piñatex, a material made from cellulose fibres extracted from pineapple leaves, which has been used by the likes of Hugo Boss and Tom Dixon.

It is taking advantage of a growing demand as well as making use of the excess of waste we produce: we discard around 27 million tonnes of pineapple leaves each year – enough to replace the entire global supply of leather shoe production. To join these dots, Ananas Anam is partnering with fruit suppliers and farms – with an emphasis on family owned businesses and ones that prioritise social impact, including in Bangladesh and the Philippines, where the inventor of the material, Spanish entrepreneur Carmen Hijosa, began the project.

Josep Taylor, chief executive of Ananas Anam, is quick to distance Piñatex with leather: ‘Brands can use this material as an alternative to leather, but we do not define ourselves as a substitute or rival to the material – we make a woven fabric, out of natural fibres, with several applications.’ The way forward, Hijosa adds, is in these plant-based materials:: ‘Piñatex encapsulates the future of fashion in so many ways, offering a more transparent and sustainable plant-based material to brands and consumers looking for alternative materials to leather and oil-based textiles .’

And yet, plant-based materials can come with their own environmental costs: many of the commercially available ‘vegan’ alternatives to leather on the market use polyurethane (PU), a fossil-fuel based resin that is designed to ensure the durability of the material. The result is that these materials cannot fully biodegrade when disposed of, creating waste and putting microplastics into the earth.

The capacity for a material to be marketed as genuinely ‘sustainable’ relies on it being repairable, recyclable and compostable, so new alternatives to leather will need to measure themselves against this ethical standard. Addressing the issue of their ongoing use of PU in the production of Piňatex, Taylor says, ‘“We aim to have replaced this with a bio-based alternative within the next six to 12 months.’”

With sectors such as the automotive, fashion and interiors industries all driving the demand for leather goods – which so far shows no sign of vanishing completely – the global impact of the leather industry on agriculture, human labour and consumption is too large to ignore. Ultimately, the ecosystem surrounding leather is best captured by designer and climate activist Vivienne Westwood’s demand for us to ‘Buy Less, Choose Well, Make it Last’.

The durability, longevity and hard-wearing nature of animal leather highlights that this debate is not nearly as clear-cut as ‘vegan good’ vs ‘animal leather bad’. With regenerative farming growing in status as one solution to the climate crisis, and the realisation that much of what has been marketed as vegan is made out of fossil fuels, traditional leather may still have a place in the world of craft and textiles.

But with every challenge, lies an opportunity: with greater research and investment, and closer collaboration between art, fashion and science, scalable vegan alternatives are being brought to market. With the rise of repair culture, industrial textiles recycling, material innovation and animal conservation, the leather trade will have to adapt and evolve, as plant-based alternatives attract an audience hungry for more ethical options.