I was recently reminded by my daughter, that an alternative plant-based leather is now being made from cactus.
What a positive, climate friendly story.
The thought of being able to harvest buttery soft leather from prickly pear or Nopal cactus, if you prefer, in Mexico where it’s indigenous, thriving without irrigation, fertilisers or pesticides, ticks every possible environmental sustainability box going I expect?
It’s been causing a bit of a ruckus in the environmentally conscious part of the fashion industry, because its breathable, hard wearing and has aesthetic animal leather appeal.
Prickly pear is a perennial which lives for up to 8 years. The farmers only harvest the older leaves and it takes three of them to make a metre of cactus leather. Younger leaves are left to grow through to maturity.
Once harvested, the leaves are washed, mashed and left out to dry for three days, using nothing more complicated than the hot Mexican sun.
The patented cactus leather is manufactured under the brand name Desserto, whose web site reinforces the benefits of using a plant-based leather alternative. There is little detail about what is mixed with the dried out and then ground cactus pudding, aside from a collective term of non-toxic chemicals.
A 2021 report by FILK Freiberg Institute, an independent research company which specialises in testing materials is a little more diagnostic. It discovered that Desserto mostly contains polyurethane or PU. This is a typical additive for plant-based leather which improves durability and flexibility. It also means that the leather is not biodegradable and complicates the claim that it’s a genuine green alternative to leather.
The fashion industry is very keen to experiment with faux leather alternatives. The Material Innovation Initiative, a think tank focused on environmentally preferable and animal-free materials reports that 67 of the 95 next-generation material companies that they track are in the alternative leather space.
Desserto is in demand and has already been used by H&M, Fossil, Adidas and Givenchy, as well as BMW and Mercedes, despite its greyish green credentials.
Opinion continues to be divided between real and plant-based leather. Cow enthusiasts argue it’s a by-product of beef, biodegradable and much longer lasting than synthetic leathers made from PU.
But growing cows is a major land use issue, including prime Amazon rainforest. Plenty of animal welfare concerns remain and tanning and finishing of leather requires the use of highly toxic chemicals.
PVC and PU leathers are plastics derived from fossil fuels. They shed micro plastics and don’t last very long.
There are some more ethical and eco-friendly manufacturers on both sides, but animal welfare and fossil-fuel issues are impossible to avoid, which is why there is so much interest in next-generation alternatives.
Courtesy of Wired UK
Piñatex is a pineapple-based textile developed by British company Ananas Anam.
In the Philippines, waste pineapple leaves are gathered after harvesting the delicious fruit. The leaves are broken down into their composite fibres and left to dry in the sun. Sound familiar?
The resultant fluff is mixed with corn-based polylactic acid and pressed into Piñafelt, rolls of which are shipped to be finished in Spain and Italy.
Just like Desserto, the big upside for pineapple leather is the production of the raw material. Pineapple leaves are a waste product and any unusable fibres can be recycled as fertiliser.
But polylactic acid behaves no differently than pertroleum-based plastics taking thousands of years to decompose. Plus the Piñatex finished leathers all contain PU which means the product isn’t biodegradable.
Both companies push their environmental credentials hard with scant detail about the unfortunate need for additional fossil-fuel based chemicals which at the very least tarnishes their verdant green stories.
I first wrote about a natural plant based alternative to leather in December 2021. This happened to be a mushroom based leather alternative which focused on the use of Mycelium, the vegetable roots part of the fungus. It has the capacity to grow outwards and away for long distances from the blobby bit we typically see above ground.
Mycelium can be grown and processed to look and feel more like calfskin leather. If the consumption of red meat continues to fall, this vegetable disruptor could help to reduce our dependence further.
It also opens up new opportunities in the tanning industry. There has been a trend to use free of chromium (FOC) leather in cars and furniture, replaced by vegetable tanning for sometime. This has not been adopted by the clothes industry yet because vegetable tanning agents aren’t as readily available.
My search for mycelium leather manufacturers lead me to two notable US start-ups with slick web sites and pots of cash.
Bolt Threads produce a trademarked leather called Mylo. MycoWorks call their fine mycelium leather Reishi.
MycoWorks has a longer and more interesting story. Philip Ross, a San Francisco artist has been cultivating mycelium for art and design since the 1990’s. His journey was finally commercially vindicated by Hermes, who use his mycelium leather in their Victoria Bag.
The big breakthrough from art to production came with their closed tray system to grow the mycelium with a consistent strength, thickness and breathability. The system has also been scaled for volume production and the trays can be custom-shaped to grow the material to specific dimensions so there is no waste.
Will there come a time when leather shoes are grown to size close to an existing shoe factory?
That step might have moved a little closer as MycoWorks start producing commercially scaled Fine Mycelium leather from their new US factory in South Carolina from this September. The new factory will employ 350 people enabling the company to supply its luxury trade partners with thousands of square metres per year.
The good news is, this is a plastic-free leather alternative, manufactured from plant based materials on a scale that solves any of the traditional supply chain issues.
Whilst Bolt Threads might have a better name for their mycelium leather, Mylo, their web site does not feature a brand new factory and many of their collaborations appear to be short runs and prototypes. Stella McCartney is the brand they continue to work with and the Frayme Mylo handbag was on show at the Paris Fashion Week in March 2023.
But when their web site explains their manufacturing process as being guided by green chemistry principles, I think it’s safe to say that they’re glossing over the additives along with the pineapples and the cacti.
Courtesy of The Ledbury
In my original investigation, I did find one UK start-up, Mykko, working with mycelium. Today, they appear to be running workshops and supporting others who want to grow their own plant-based leather.
One stunning example of their work can be found in the recently re-opened, 2 star Michelin restaurant, The Ledbury. They grew the sheets of mycelium which are now hanging on the wall.