India: Animal-free leathers are nothing but misleading

Kanpur: “We're at a turning point,” says the American journalist, Dana Thomas. Her views go against things like grape leather, cactus leather, kombucha leather or mushroom leather. It looks a bit different from the usual leather but seems becoming increasingly mainstream.

With the drive towards more sustainable fashion, the burgeoning world of animal-free alt leathers is getting popular. The emphasis is given to these kinds of animal-free leather' amid deteriorating climate.

The purpose of more sustainable fashion is important to save our polluted environment. But some tanners find the animal skin or hide-free leather technically misleading.

Kanpur tanner Ibrahim points out that leather is a material based on animal origin, not vegetable based. Synthetic or man-made materials that have been used in the market like PU/PVC are nothing but misleading.

Lengthening his views, he adds that leather is a material made or processed that is widely known as tanning to convert the raw hide or skin (a by-product of the meat industry) into sustainable or non-putrescible material called leather by remaining intact in its fibre structure.