Meng Du creates Unwasted bags from grape leather

The Unwasted collection of bags by Chinese designer Meng Du are made with an alternative leather produced from leftover grape skins.

Du created the bags from grape marc, a byproduct of wine production. Grape marc contains the skins, pulp, pips and stems of the fruit that are left after it has been pressed for wine.

Unwasted bags are made from leftover grapes. Photo is by Osman Tahir

Du sourced the alternative leather material from Planet of the Grapes, a French producer of materials and natural dyes made from waste grape skins.

The company produces the textile by collecting grape marc from vineyards in France and drying it under natural sunlight. It is then ground into a powder and blended with natural ingredients to create a liquid, which is poured onto a fabric of natural stem fibres and left to dry again.

The material is a byproduct of the wine industry. Photo is by Osman Tahir

"The entire process takes around four or five weeks, as it starts off with the spreading out and the drying all of the grapes in the sunshine for a couple of weeks," Sam Mureau, co-founder of Planet of the Grapes, told Dezeen.

"After the grapes are truly dried out they are then used to make the grape leather and then once transformed into sheets of material they are left to air dry, which again takes two or three weeks depending on the time of year," she said.

Du shapes the alternative leather over her 3D-printed designs

According to Du, the supple, lightweight material has a lightly textured feel that is reminiscent of the real fruit's texture.

"You can feel the broken down pomace under your fingers and it reminds you from where it came, and that's what adds the character to the material," the designer told Dezeen.

"The material is lightweight and flexible and it has a really natural lustre to it and each piece is unique," Du continued.

The bags come in two irregular shapes

The collection contains two bags: Unwasted Merlot, a larger bag designed to look like a squashed plastic milk carton; and Unwasted Chardonnay, a smaller pack-style bag that resembles a tin can.

Du says that these shape choices are intented to draw attention to the importance of recycling.

[

Read:

Sonnet155 is a "temporary handbag" made from discarded fruit peels

](https://www.dezeen.com/2021/04/27/sonnet155-lobke-beckfeld-johanna-hehemeyer-curten/)

"I found that beverage cartons and cans are often squeezed into strange shapes when they are recycled and to me, this imperfection illustrates the value of a second life," said Du.

"We called the concept Incognito - meaning that an item doesn't look the way you think it will: although it looks like a squashed beverage carton, it is actually a fashion product. And though it looks like it’s leather, it's actually made of grapes," she added.

Around 1,200 grapes were used for the Merlot bag

Around 1,200 grapes are used to create enough material for the large shoulder bag – the equivalent of 0.5 square metres of leather.

Du shapes the leather over a 3D-printed mould by hand in a lengthy process that takes two days for the larger bag and around 30 hours for the smaller bag. The inner lining of both is made from organic cotton.

Every year, approximately 290 million hectolitres of wine is produced around the world, but most of the grapes used in the process are then discarded and left to waste.

Du hopes that these bags will solve some of this waste problem and also encourage consumers to reconsider how their belongings are made.

The Chardonnay bag is shaped like a tin can

"The audience interested in this kind of product may be niche, but hopefully we are moving towards making long-term investments in something more meaningful than the casual fast fashion purchase," said the designer.

The bags are created in partnership with Swedish wine producer OddBird, and are currently available to pre-order ahead of on-demand production later in the year.

There is a growing trend for using fruit waste to create handbags or accessories and grapes aren't the only fruit that can be used. Banana peels were used by textile designer Youyang Song to create Peelsphere, a waterproof material for bags and accessories.

Berlin design students Lobke Beckfeld and Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten developed Sonnet155, a translucent bag that dissolves in water made from discarded fruit peels.

The photography is by Meng Du unless otherwise stated.

The post Meng Du creates Unwasted bags from grape leather appeared first on Dezeen.

#all #design #fashion #products #bags #materials #accessories #leatheralternatives #biomaterials

MCQ infuses rice-leather jacket with custom fragrance

Natural latex is combined with rice hulls and a woodsy blend of essential oils to form this scented jacket, created by Alexander McQueen sub-brand MCQ to showcase the unique characteristics of plant-based leather alternatives.

Produced in a limited edition of ten as part of the label's Grow Up collection, the outerwear piece takes the form of a traditional biker jacket but is made from a vegan animal-hide substitute called Mirum.

The material was developed by American start-up Natural Fiber Welding (NFW) and customised for MCQ with an off-white base colour that was created using mineral clay and allows the rice-husk speckles in the plant leather to shine through.

MCQ has created ten leather jackets using Mirum plant leather

The brand also added an earthy aroma using different essential oils, which will linger in the garments for around a year. Designed as a homage to gardening, each of the final jackets is hand-painted with childlike nature motifs by New York artist Kevin Emerson.

"Imagine putting this jacket on and it's not just a jacket," NFW vice president Oihana Elizalde told Dezeen. "There's this scent that adds a different dimension, which MCQ really loved."

"That's something we are starting to explore more and more, particularly in the fashion space."

NFW customised the exact finish of the material for MCQ

Unlike other plant-based leather alternatives, which often rely on a layer of plastic for their durability, Elizalde says NFW's material has been independently certified as petroleum-free and entirely biobased.

Its natural fragrance is directly mixed in with the other ingredients, namely the clay, FSC-certified latex derived from the rubber tree and a number of different vegetable oils.

This is then combined with a filler, for which NFW uses waste materials from the food industry such as coconut and corn husks or, in this case, rice hulls.

Each jacket was hand-painted by Kevin Emerson

After being applied to a backing textile made from organic cotton, the finished material would normally be embossed with a leather-like texture.

But MCQ opted to leave its version completely smooth and supple to keep the focus on the rice-husk speckles.

"They didn't want something that looked like leather," Elizalde said. "It didn't need to have the typical animal grain. They loved this idea of showing off natural materials and this additional granularity that you get by seeing the rice hulls."

The rice hulls create a speckled effect in the final material

The resulting plant leather has a carbon footprint of around two kilograms of CO2 per kilogram of material, Elizalde estimates, based on a preliminary lifecycle analysis.

"It depends on the backer you use and if the backer is dyed," she said. "But the material emits up to 40 times less carbon than leather and up to 17 times less than synthetics."

As a collaborative brand under the English fashion house Alexander McQueen, MCQ brings together a different team of creatives for each of its collections.

In this case, the material is supplied by NFW before being fashioned into leather jackets courtesy of the MCQ team and further personalised by Emerson with a mixture of different paints and markers.

[

Read:

Allbirds to make shoes using plant-based leather to help "eradicate petroleum from the fashion industry"

](https://www.dezeen.com/2021/03/03/plant-leather-allbirds-natural-fiber-welding/)

When it has outlived its usefulness, the plant leather can be ground up and recycled into new Mirum or placed in soil and left to biodegrade.

Due to the natural durability of latex, this will take more than just a couple of months. But Elizalde says the material was carefully engineered to avoid polluting the surrounding environment during its slow degradation process.

"We designed a material with zero synthetics and zero plastics so that when you put it back to earth you don't have the issue of microplastics," she said.

"We also don't use dye or chemicals to alter the material because those chemicals over time will leech out and end up in the water."

The illustrations reference nature and gardening

However, in the case of the jackets, these efforts are subverted by adding the different paints and marker inks, which generally contain some form of fossil-based resin or solvent.

Mirum has already been turned into a number of small accessories such as bags and wallets, while companies from Allbirds to Ralph Lauren have invested in the material in the hopes of integrating it into their products.

The MCQ collaboration marks the first time the material has been fashioned into garments, which will be gifted to "big name VIPs and friends of the brand".

The material has an off-white colour created using mineral clay

A number of major fashion labels have launched products made from plant-based leather alternatives in the last year, although, like the jackets, most have so far been relegated to limited editions and concept pieces.

Among them are various products made from mushroom mycelium, including a two-piece ensemble Stella McCartney and updated versions of the Adidas Stan Smith trainers and Hermès's Victoria shopper.

The post MCQ infuses rice-leather jacket with custom fragrance appeared first on Dezeen.

#all #design #fashion #clothing #alexandermcqueen #materials #scent #leatheralternatives

Mari Koppanen wraps seating collection in traditional Transylvanian mushroom leather

Furniture designer Mari Koppanen has resurrected a suede-like material, historically made in parts of central Romania from hoof fungus, to upholster a rotund stool and matching bench.

The Fomes range was designed in homage to its titular fungus, which is also known as fomes fomentarius and grows mushrooms shaped as a horse's hoof. Its wooden legs are made from the same birch trees on which it commonly grows.

These are topped with fluffy wool seats and enveloped by sheets of amadou, a leathery material derived from the fruit of the fungus that craftsmen in the region of Transylvania have been using to fashion alpine-style hats and other accessories since the 1840s.

The Fomes collection includes a stool and bench

By reimagining it for use in contemporary furniture, Koppanen hopes to preserve this dying skill as well as exploring the material as a substitute for animal leather.

"The craft is in danger of disappearing as the number of families practising it has reduced noticeably during the past decades," said Koppanen, who is researching amadou as part of her doctorate at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

"It is a unique craft and the material could have big potential in the future," she told Dezeen. "Compared to leather, it does not require killing an animal or heavy processes of soaking, tanning and dyeing. The material is fully biodegradable, cruelty-free and natural."

The stool's base and bench's four legs are made from birch wood wrapped in amadou

Koppanen started learning how to work with amadou for her master's project four years ago, spending a week with some of the families who have been practising the craft in the eastern Transylvanian village of Corund since the 19th century.

Although few practitioners remain, she says the tools and techniques are the same as they were almost 200 years ago.

"The knowledge is transferred from mouth to mouth and has been passed from one generation to another," the Finnish designer explained.

Fluffy wool upholstery covers the plump seats

The process starts by using a sharp sickle to peel away the hard, crusty outer layer of the hoof fungus.

This reveals its spongey insides, which are trimmed into shape and carefully stretched and flattened out by hand using small circular motions before being left to dry.

"It looks easy but requires lots of practice and knowledge," Koppanen said. "You will also have to know which fungi to pick by looking at their age, colour and shape. I got my tuition from the experts but I'd definitely need 10 more years to master it."

Amadou is wrapped around the base of the stool and the legs of the bench

Traditionally, pieces of amadou are connected using a glue made from animal bone collagen. But Koppanen has instead opted for a vegan bookbinding glue, sourced from a small shop in her native Helsinki.

The mushroom leather itself has a texture and warm brown colour that is reminiscent of suede, although its fibres are shorter and slightly less durable.

Amadou has long been used as kindling and scraps of the material were found on the mummified remains of Ötzi the Iceman, who died in the Alps more than 5,200 years ago.

[

Read:

Six alternatives to animal leather made from plants and food waste

](https://www.dezeen.com/2020/10/16/leather-alternatives-vegan-materials-design/)

But amadou's spongey texture also makes it highly absorbent, with dentists using it to stem bleeding before the advent of medical cotton.

"The material seals the liquid inside itself and has an anti-inflammatory effect," Koppanen said.

"The fruiting body of this fungus can grow for up to 10 years, which is a long time for a mushroom, so it produces antiseptic enzymes to defend itself from different threats such as insects and larvae."

The material has a suede-like finish

Koppanen has used amadou as a substitute for animal leather in a range of contemporary design pieces, including bags and vests.

But large-scale adoption of the material is limited by its supply, and according to the designer should always go hand-in-hand with an appreciation of its history.

The material is made from the flesh of the hoof fungus

"Tinder mushrooms grow widely in Europe and North America but they require quite a specific environment and circumstances to grow the soft and flexible layer needed to make amadou," she said.

"It is a limited resource, not only geographically but also because you have to be a talented handcrafter to know which mushrooms to pick and how to process them," she added.

"I don't believe amadou offers a direct alternative to harmful textile and leather mass production – at least not yet," she added. "But it offers us a great direction to strive for."

The fungus is peeled using a sharp sickle. Photo is by the designer

Mushroom leather has become a buzzword in the fashion industry in recent months, as major brands including Hermès, Stella McCartney and Adidas are experimenting with using the material as an alternative to animal hides.

Rather than relying on a traditional craft process like amadou, these are generally produced in labs by biomaterial companies and make use of the root system of fungi, known as mycelium, rather than their fruits.

All photography is byJere Viinikainen unless otherwise stated.

The post Mari Koppanen wraps seating collection in traditional Transylvanian mushroom leather appeared first on Dezeen.

#furniture #all #design #seating #studentprojects #graduates #fungi #leatheralternatives

Peelsphere is a leather-alternative biomaterial made from fruit waste and algae

Berlin-based textile designer Youyang Song has used fruit peels and algae to create a biodegradable plant-based material that offers an alternative to leather.

Peelsphere is a versatile and waterproof textile that can be hardened to form accessories like buttons, or left malleable and soft for items such as bags.

Peelsphere is a biodegradable material made from algae and fruit skins

Song, who originally trained as a textile designer, first started experimenting with leather made from fruit leaves after realising that there was nothing available on the market for her own designs.

"I started off as a textile designer, I was surprised that I could not find a completely biodegradable material on the market for my design work," she told Dezeen.

It can be used as a leather alternative for accessories

Song was determined to create a material that could replace animal hide yet still retain the same versatility and strength of the popular material.

"As an ideal alternative to leather and synthetic leather, Peelsphere is beautiful, durable, versatile and biodegradable," she said.

It is available in several colours and patterns created using natural dyes

The designer and her studio of engineers and designers embarked on a "journey of transforming wastes into treasures". They began by contacting local fruit juice suppliers to ask for leftover banana and orange peel.

The team then devised a manufacturing process that involves extracting the fibre and pectin from the peel and mixing it together before grinding it into fine pieces using a bio-binder.

The mixture forms sheets of leather-like material that can be dyed using natural dyes. Finally, the team laser-cuts and 3D-prints the sheets into different sizes.

[

Read:

Biomaterial companies see "explosion in interest" as sales double in a year

](https://www.dezeen.com/2021/12/28/biomaterials-review-2021/)

The resulting material is waterproof and can be embroidered, woven or sewn into a variety of final products.

"I was thinking about developing a biodegradable material that can preserve the smell, the refined texture, and the tactile quality of the fruits," explained Song.

The hard version of Peelsphere can make buttons

The material can be recycled after use by the Peelsphere studio or by the customer. According to Song, Peelsphere is a 100 per cent biodegradable circular material.

"The whole process involves only biodegradable ingredients and the final product is 100 per cent biodegradable without compromise in the performance," Song said.

"Through recycling, redesign, and reuse, a closed-loop circular design of the material is achieved," she added.

"The material focuses on the potential of fruit waste, redefining the relationship between materials and sustainability."

Its creator designer Youyang Song hopes that users will recycle the material after use

There is a growing interest in using vegan alternatives to leather – particularly within the fashion industry – as more and more people stand against the cruelty of mass livestock rearing, and turn to plant-based designs.

British materials company Ananas Anam was an early pioneer with its plant-based leather alternative called Piñatex, which is made from pineapple leaves.

More recently, brands like Adidas, Stella McCartney, Lululemon and Gucci's parent company Kering have invested in a mycelium-based material called Mylo, which looks and feels like animal leather.

All images courtesy of Youyang Song.

The post Peelsphere is a leather-alternative biomaterial made from fruit waste and algae appeared first on Dezeen.

#products #all #design #materials #vegandesign #leatheralternatives #biomaterials

Deca vegan-friendly leather alternative by Camira

Dezeen Showroom: British textile brand Camira has launched its first vegan-friendly leather alternative called Deca, which can be used as an upholstery fabric.

Made from polyurethane (PU), Deca is designed to give the appearance of high-quality leather and is soft to touch.

"We're delighted to provide a vegan alternative to leather," said Camira. "We've worked hard to ensure that Deca will complement the most sophisticated of interior schemes through its luxurious feel and delicate colour palette."

Deca is a vegan-friendly leather suitable for upholstery

Deca was developed to be a high-performance fabric and can withstand high heat and humidity levels.

The fabric is available in 20 colours and has a cotton backing designed to make it malleable and ideal for upholstery.

Deca is the first vegan leather alternative Camira has launched

"Deca is free from the harmful substances commonly found in polyurethane," said the brand. "The product does not contain PVCs, phthalates, or the solvent DMF (Dimethylformamide), and is certified to OEKO-TEX Standard 100, demonstrating that it is harmless to human health."

Product: Deca
Brand: Camira

About Dezeen Showroom: Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email [email protected].

Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership contenthere.

The post Deca vegan-friendly leather alternative by Camira appeared first on Dezeen.

#textiles #products #all #donotshowonthehomepage #design #dezeenshowroom #finishes #camira #leatheralternatives

Leap is a vegan leather made from waste apple cores and skins

Copenhagen-based Beyond Leather has combined leftovers from apple juice and cider production with natural rubber to create a plant-based leather alternative called Leap.

The animal hide substitute is made by mixing apple waste with natural rubber and applying it to a textile backing made of cotton and wood fibre before finishing it with a protective coating, creating a three-layered structure that can be disassembled at the end of its life.

Beyond Leather has created a leather alternative called Leap from post-industrial food waste

Leap joins a growing cohort of biomaterials that are being designed to mitigate the environmental impact of animal leather and its plastic alternatives.

Among them are Piñatex, which is made from waste pineapple leaves and has previously been turned into Hugo Boss trainers, as well as the mushroom leathers being piloted by Adidas, Stella McCartney and Hermès.

Beyond Leather's apple-based version emits 85 per cent less CO2 in its production than traditional leather, according to the company's estimates, as well as requiring one per cent of the amount of water. A full lifecycle assessment is yet to be undertaken.

The apple biomass help to give the material a supple, tactile quality much like real leather

Leap is made from the skins, cores, stems and seeds of apples, which are left over after the fruit is juiced.

"Roughly 25 per cent of an apple goes to waste after pressing it for juice or cider," Beyond Leather co-founder Hannah Michaud told Dezeen.

"We source the apple waste for Leap from a small Danish juice producer who processes local farmers' apples into beverages and creates 500 to 600 tons of waste every year."

The apple waste is combined with natural rubber to create a uniform slurry

According to Michaud, this biomass helps to give the final material a supple yet robust finish much like real leather.

"The apple waste has a very high content of short fibres and polymers that, if used in the right way, can be activated to give the necessary strength and stiffness to the final material," she explained.

"Apple makes up the majority of our product and in the future we want it to make up the entire product."

The material has a protective coating that can be imbued with different colours

At the moment, Leap uses a twill backing woven from certified organic cotton and Tencel, a kind of fibre made from wood pulp.

And, like many plant-based leather alternatives such as Piñatex, Leap's durability is currently ensured with the help of a protective plastic coating, which is embossed for texture and also contains the pigments that give the leather alternative its colour.

The coating was made half from traditional petroleum-based polyurethane and polyether, and half bioplastic.

Beyond Leather hopes to make the material completely bio-based and biodegradable by 2024.

"We aim to replace the current coating in a way that can still deliver the desired qualities without the use of fossil fuel-derived plastic, based on the company's philosophy of using waste as a core ingredient," Michaud explained.

Leap is flexible much like real leather

In the meantime, the version of the material that will be made available to fashion brands this year was designed to be taken apart, so that its constituent materials can be separately recycled.

"The point of the three-layered design is that the fossil fuel-derived coating and the textile can be removed at the end of life of the final product," said Michaud.

"They can be put into their respective recycling loops while the apple itself can biodegrade."

A textile backing helps to strengthen the material

Footwear brand Allbirds recently collaborated with materials startup Natural Fiber Welding to create what it claims is the first plant-based leather alternative to be made entirely without petroleum while producing 98 per cent fewer carbon emissions than animal hide.

Speaking to Dezeen as part of our carbon revolution series, Allbirds sustainability head Hana Kajimura explained that the reason the performance of biomaterials has so far been lagging behind that of fossil plastics is due to the fact that they have not received the same amount of funding.

Different textures can be embossed into the protective coating

"We lament how natural materials maybe don't perform as well as synthetics but this is just because of the lack of investment and innovation in this space," she explained.

"We've been innovating on synthetics for decades, since the 1800s when we discovered and started drilling for oil. And we just haven't placed that same amount of investment on natural materials and really figuring out how to increase their performance."

The post Leap is a vegan leather made from waste apple cores and skins appeared first on Dezeen.

#all #design #materials #fashion #food #reclaimedmaterials #leatheralternatives #veganleather

Adidas unveils Stan Smith Mylo trainers made from mycelium leather

Adidas has revealed a mycelium leather version of its classic Stan Smith trainers, becoming the latest in a flurry of brands creating products from the sustainable leather alternative.

The concept shoe has an upper grown in a lab from mycelium – the spiderweb-like filament structure that fungi use to grow much like the roots of a tree.

Sheets of the material were grown over the course of two weeks and then tanned and dyed to create a mycelium leather called Mylo, which was originally unveiled by US biotechnology company Bolt Threads in 2018.

The material has now been refined in collaboration with Adidas to make it fit for its first application in high-performance footwear.

The Stan Smith Mylo trainer was created in collaboration with Bolt Threads

"By creating the iconic Stan Smith with a Mylo material upper, Adidas is demonstrating the far-reaching potential of this innovative material," said Jamie Bainbridge, VP of Product at Bolt Threads.

"Mylo has the strength and performance it does today thanks to the guidance and deep technical expertise of the Adidas team in making great footwear."

Last year, Adidas became part of a consortium of major brands, including Stella McCartney, Lululemon and Gucci's parent company Kering, which have invested in Mylo in a bid to scale up the experimental material and make it available to consumers.

The ultimate aim is to mitigate the environmental impact of cowhide and its plastic substitutes by replacing them with a material, which Bolt Threads claims consumes fewer natural resources and emits fewer greenhouse gases in its production.

The upper of the shoes is made from mycelium

In March, McCartney unveiled a two-piece outfit made from Mylo but the Stan Smith Mylos mark the first time that the material has been used to create a pair of shoes.

Both designs are only concepts at this stage, as the material cannot yet be mass-produced, although Adidas has said that it plans to make a version of the trainers available for purchase "in the near future".

"Stan Smith is one of our biggest and most iconic franchises, meaning we can scale the rollout of Mylo faster to create a more immediate and significant impact for the environment – with a commercially available proof of concept expected in the near future," the company said.

Adidas has previously worked with Stella McCartney to create a completely vegan, leather-free version of the Stan Smiths and released a Primegreen version of the trainers made from 50 per cent recycled materials.

More than 50 per cent of all polyester used by the brand is currently recycled and by 2024, Adidas has promised to scale this up to 100 per cent.

"The introduction of Mylo as a new material is a major step forward in our bold ambition to help end plastic waste," said Amy Jones Vaterlaus, global head of future at Adidas.

"As a planet, we must learn to work with nature rather than against it and put all our efforts into finding innovative solutions that are created responsibly with resources that renew at a sustainable pace."

Other brands that are betting on mycelium include French luxury house Hermès, which has partnered with biomaterials company MycoWorks to create an updated version of its Victoria shopper bag that will be available for purchase from the end of this year.

The post Adidas unveils Stan Smith Mylo trainers made from mycelium leather appeared first on Dezeen.

#all #fashion #design #news #trainers #shoes #adidas #mycelium #sustainablefashion #leatheralternatives