𝐕𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 is a material used to make clothing, accessories, footwear and even furnishing, that looks and feels alike with leather, but it’s manufacture doesn’t require any animal skin, or animal deriverd products.
Technically, Vegan Leather isn’t leather at all, and it’s possible that in future we will call it by another word, to avoid consumer confusion.
Truthfully, the adoption of the word “vegan” to describe faux leather is relatively new. We’ve been using faux leathers for more than a century, but the term vegan leather wasn’t in place until around 2010. That’s when some ikon designers, like Stella McCartney, launched clothing and accessory lines – and even entire brands – built on the premise of being animal-free. There’s no room for leather in an animal-free clothing line, so they looked to the available synthetic leathers as an alternative. As so-called vegan brands adopted synthetic leather, naturally it came to be known as vegan leather.
The naysayers might argue that using the term is a greenwashing tactic, since many people confuse “vegan” with “eco friendly,” when, really, all vegan means is that something was made without using any animal products; the eco friendly part is not a given.
Not that vegan leather can’t be eco friendly. But it requires doing a bit of research to understand whether something is truly an eco friendly vegan leather – or not.
by Vidya Vijayaranhavan "Nomomente"
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