Application of Plant-based and PU materials

Over the last six months I’ve had the opportunity to work with several plant based leathers as well as peta friendly vegan (pu) leathers. I also don’t want to discount leathers because I’ve been working on a shoe project where we are using chrome free leathers out of Italy.

It’s pretty incredible what is out there. After working with brands, and their Chinese factories for most of my career, the PU’s we were handling then were nothing like what I’m seeing today such as grape leather, luxury vegan from Japan, peta friendly leathers out of Italy, biodegradable outsoles, and upper materials like coconut leather from Malai Biomaterials.

I recently had the opportunity to make a little coin/key pouch, and was very curious to see how the Malai coconut leather works. I won’t deny it feels like cardboard when you handle it at first. But I thought let’s give it a try and see what happens. I was very pleased to see how it folded, and once the material was handled it seemed to smooth and soften. For this prototype, I also used hemp lining.

I’m going to be wear testing this pouch and see how it wears after using several times.

If you’re interested in using this in your designs, I highly recommend it. It will definitely surprise you. I’m looking forward to using it more in the future.

I have a few projects where we will be using grape leather, cactus, peta approved vegans as well as eco friendly satins. I’ll be reporting back the outcomes in case your interested to hear how these materials handle.

If you’re interested in sourcing sustainable materials for your project, please contact me here.