Fashion star: Is vegan leather a sustainable alternative to the real thing?

Fashion is finally waking up to sustainability—but the lexicon surrounding eco-friendly and ethical fashion is fraught with inaccuracies. In ‘Get Your Greens’, Vogue explores how the industry is advancing towards a greener future.

Fashion has always had a weakness for oxymorons. Take “athleisure”—that peculiar clash of athletic meets sweat-free casual. Ditto “affordable luxury”. Its latest self-contradictory crush? “Vegan leather”.

Otherwise known as synthetic leather, it used to be colloquially identified as (insert sniffy voice here) “pleather”. It is mostly made from polyurethane, a versatile polymer made from fossil fuels, or polyvinyl chloride (PVC), another form of plastic, and was formerly derided as cheap—the “skinted” alternative to “minted” butter-soft lambskin.

But with the industry’s move away from fur—Gucci, Michael Kors, Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren are just some of the luxury brands to have gone fur-free—comes a reassessment of other animal-based products. In particular, the production of leather has come under increased scrutiny.

Image: Net-a-porter.com

Animal rights campaigners point to the harsh treatment of animals farmed in industrial processes. Environmentalists point to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with raising livestock, of which leather is a byproduct—agriculture, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, is responsible for up to 18 per cent of the total release of greenhouse gases worldwide. Then there is the deforested land on which those animals often graze, and the giant vats of hazardous chemicals in which the leather is tanned (very often, these are subsequently dumped into rivers).

Yet the alternative faux leathers come at a significant environmental cost. Both polyurethane and polyvinyl chloride must undergo chemical processes to make them flexible enough to mimic leather: the former involves painting liquified polyeurethane onto a fabric backing, which requires a toxic solvent to render it fluid; the latter requires placticizers such as phthalates, which are also toxic. Both derive from fossil fuels which, when burnt, release materials such as ash, nitrogen and carbon into the atmosphere, which contribute to acid rain (as well as lots of other horrible things). And both take hundreds of years to biodegrade in landfill—a fate they are arguably more likely to meet, because the cheap, faux leather jacket you snagged for a fiver at Watford market is far less likely to be handed down through generations as an heirloom. (Besides, this country sends over 300,000 tonnes of clothing to landfill every year.)

Image: Net-a-porter.com

That hasn’t stopped numerous fashion brands bandying around the term “vegan leather” with increased enthusiasm. I’ve lost count of the number of press releases dropping into my inbox in recent weeks screaming about these so-called sustainable leather alternatives. Presumably that’s because consumer interest is at an all-time high. Lyst reports that over the past six months, searches for vegan leather have increased by 119 per cent. Meanwhile, the term “vegan fashion” has been responsible for over 9.3 million social impressions.

Marks & Spencer has observed particular success. Searches for “vegan” fashion doubled on its website last year, and it has increased its vegan footwear offering as a result. In April, Topshop launched a Peta-approved vegan leather shoe collection comprising 12 shapes developed in its factory in Spain, touted as “100 per cent non-animal and non-fish glue”. Even Dr Martens offers a 100 per cent vegan leather alternative to its classic 1460 leather boot.

Net-A-Porter.com has also seen increased pick-up in sales of faux leather. At its autumn/winter 2019 trends presentation, global buying director Elizabeth von der Goltz flagged how Ukrainian brand Ochi’s faux leather shirt (£470) almost sold out in its first two weeks on sale. Nanushka, a Budapest-based label that is another star brand for the retailer, has made its name with the “Hide”, a vegan leather puffer jacket owned by every Instagram influencer worth their salt, along with its “Taurus” vegan leather maxi dress.

Nanushka’s vegan leather is made from polyurethane and polyester, though designer Sandra Sandor is at pains to point out that it is REACH-certified under EU regulations, which mitigates the effect of harmful chemicals. Subsequently, nearly half of Net-A-Porter’s buy for Nanushka this autumn comprises vegan leather pieces. “The fabric feels so supple and amazing, you’d never know the difference,” says Von der Goltz.

Stella McCartney agrees: she launched her eponymous label in 2001 with “vegetarian” principles (she has never used fur, leather, skin or feathers). Since 2013 she has used “alter-nappa” for her best-selling Falabella bag, shoes and ready-to-wear—a blend of polyester and polyurethane with a recycled polyester backing. Her faux leather has eco-credentials: the alter-nappa coating is made with 60 per cent vegetable oil; her polyurethanes are water-borne and solvent-free, meaning they’re less energy- and water-intensive and made without toxic solvents. Her website cites a statistic from Environmental Profit and Loss (EP&L) that “using recycled polyester instead of Brazilian calf leather, for example, creates 24 times less of an environmental impact”. But even she has had to acknowledge “that the synthetic alternatives we use are not without environmental concerns”. She is looking into lab-grown leather as an alternative.

Image: Net-a-porter.com

The result is one big game of fashion whack-a-mole—you cut out one toxin over here, and it emerges again several steps later down the supply chain. As a journalist and a fashion-lover, I find myself casting around for an easy equation to adopt when weighing up a purchase. Should I save up for a much-lusted after Givenchy leather blazer, at £3,174, knowing I will wear it for life—or the faux leather Low Classic alternative, at £355, which I may well go off in several months’ time? Should I indulge my animal-lover instincts in favour of a synthetic alternative that may well have a far harsher impact on the environment? What about microfibres? What about fossil fuels? What about shipping, and packaging, and dry cleaning?

There are always trade-offs to consider. Amy Powney, creative director of Mother of Pearl, is particularly torn on the leather debate. “There are some big issues in the production of leather [but] I do think that “vegan leather” is a marketing disaster,” she says. “Brands and suppliers are jumping on this term to associate with an ethical movement, which instantly makes the consumer feel good. But if you are buying faux leather, you need to consider you are buying plastic.”

She has recently been investigating “best practice leather” as well as vegetable-tanning, which uses natural tanning agents, largely because it’s far more durable than the current faux leather options on the market. “Because the other question is, which one lasts longer?” she says. “If you buy leather goods from a brand that has high standards and ethics of leather practices, and you look after your purchase, leather can last for a really long time.”

Image: Net-a-porter.com

The designer Gabriela Hearst, who breeds grass-fed, free-range cattle on the family ranch in Uruguay, is of a similar opinion. “I would be willing to use vegan leather any time, but I haven’t found one that biodegrades 100 per cent,” she says, over the phone from New York. “Everyone talks about lab-grown leather, which sounds very exciting, but is still in its very early stages. A true luxury customer knows what quality looks like— you can’t fool them. What I can do, however, is try to use things that already exist—dead-stock, bi-products. It’s a complicated issue but I focus on the waste aspect: I know that when the organic cattle we breed is sent to the slaughter house, 99 per cent of it gets used and nothing goes to waste.”

In the past year, Hearst has successfully switched all her packaging to compostable and biodegradable alternatives, including recycled cardboard hangers. She is in the process of re-routing delivery processes from plane to boat—no mean feat, given that one needs to build in an 8-12 week window of delay into the production schedule. “But it’s good for business,” she insists. “Shipping by boat is cheaper than shipping by plane. I’m looking at my buying orders, cutting them down, too. Being less wasteful saves you money.”

More good news: a new crop of viable leather alternatives is in production. H&M’s latest Conscious collection, a sustainably-minded capsule, makes use of Piñatex, a fibre made in the Philippines from discarded pineapple leaves to make faux-leather. Frumat leather made from apple peel won the Green Carpet Challenge awards in Milan in September, and sustainable denim brand Boyish is planning to use it in its autumn/winter 2020 collection. Mylo, otherwise known as mushroom leather, was debuted by start-up Bolt Threads in 2018, and is made from lab-grown mycelium, the root structure of fungi.

So, will we soon be toting funghi-based Fendi bags around town? Not quite. As Honor Cowen, a north America-based consultant at sustainability consultancy Anthesis, tells Vogue: “New vegan leather products that are bio-based offer alternatives, but need to scale considerably (and resourcefully) to be able to compete with the plastic market.”

The fact remains that we all need to buy less, and buy better. “Look for signs of quality and durability. I have a limited number of leather items in my wardrobe, all of which have been in my possession for a long time and will be worn or used until they break irreparably,” says Cowen. Powney agrees. “Whether you’re buying real or faux leather, make sure it’s of high quality, that you look after it, and only buy what you really need from brands that genuinely care.” Ask brands for information. Study those composition labels. In 2019, the best any of us can do is to be well educated.

This article originally appeared on Vogue.co.uk