Pineapple leather (piñatex) is a crinkly leather due to the long leaves that would otherwise be thrown away, as pineapples only flower and fruit one time. This leather provides farmers in the Philippines with additional income from the harvest, with leftover biomass used as fertiliser. It’s biodegradable in controlled conditions, and the petroleum coating is hopefully soon to be replaced with natural resins. 1 People Berlin Vegan Belt is made from Piñatex®, nice with shirt dresses or wide-leg trousers, and adorned with a brass buckle.
If you think the world has gone totally barmy, you’d be right! Some of the world’s top fashion houses are now replacing animal leathers (unkind, polluting, toxic) with vegan leathers made from fruit. Many people mistakenly believe the leather industry is a by-product of the meat industry, but it’s not. Most leather is made in the far east, in countries where there are little or no welfare laws for animals (or humans that make the leather, who are often subjected to toxic chemicals from the tanning process, which then go into the water supplies, and harm marine wildlife too).
Vegan leathers differ in their quality. ‘Pleather’ is simply plastic leather, which may kind to animals but anything but to the planet. And most Microfibers without PVC are better, but still there is work to be done. Vegan leathers of all kinds are not yet fully biodegradable, but getting there! One way of helping to use up the world’s fruit waste is to blend it with other materials to make luxury easy-to-clean vegan leathers!
