Lately, retailers have increasingly been turning to circular fashion, recycling, and reselling their wares to loyal customers but the likes of Mónica Santos Gil of Santos by Mónica have stopped using plastics and traditional leather to use materials Cactus leather.
It’s essentially the cactus fibers mixed with a nontoxic liquid polymer compound made from plant-based oils. Recycled materials are just as coveted as new ones. Coach recently launched Coachtopia, a circular initiative repurposing leather scraps into new bags, with plenty of other brands following suit.
If your diet is mostly greens, your bags can now be, too. These brands have replaced animal by-products with materials you’d find at Whole Foods: apples, cacti, mushrooms, eucalyptus, and more. Brands are making significant investments and innovations in plant-based materials, and if it’s good enough for Hermès, it’s good enough for us.
Everlane is known for its breezy basics dedicated to lowering environmental impact — now they’re doing the same with accessories. The material is made from plant-based proteins and oils in a process that uses less water and produces less emissions. It is nearly indistinguishable from the brand’s Luxe Italian Leather Tote. However, the price of products made from sustainable materials is the same.
BioFabbrica Bio-Tex the material used by Everlane is a predominantly plant-based material that doesn’t use animal or petroleum byproducts in the development process. Burch also turned to the same supplier as Everlane to develop this new tote.
The offbeat totes from New York–based Santos by Mónica, come in several fun colors and shapes so you don’t just have work bag options, you also have going-out bag options. The surprisingly soft leather is made of a mix of cactus leather and Tencel (made of eucalyptus), and the brand is fully transparent about the process. It uses less water, and no cacti are harmed in the process. Half the materials are biodegradable and the other half are recyclable.
You won’t find any animal byproducts in Stella McCartney’s products. The designer has been vehemently against leathers, feathers, and furs since starting her brand in 2001. Since they’ve been in the game so long the brand has experimented with leather alternatives like grape leather sourced from wineries; Mylo, a newer mushroom leather; and oil- and solvent-free recycled polyurethane. These brands are making the old brand new again and turning trash and plastic bottles into treasure. Literally.
Known for its fine leather goods, Mansur Gavriel has carved out an entire space on its site dedicated to its leather alternatives. Offering three of the same signature silhouettes you already know and love, they are just as durable and waterproof. The bucket tote is a pretty standard everyday bag — it doesn’t fit your laptop, but you can fit most of everything else. The apple leather is made from recycled apples, which is a fancier way to say “food waste.” However, though apple skin does makeup 28 percent of the composition, it should be noted that there’s also a percentage of polyurethane.
Like Mansur Gavriel, the materials from this are sourced from apples, more specifically peels and cores from the food industry used to make apple products like juice. The tote comes with a hefty price tag, but it’s a small price to pay for a bag that in one fell swoop aims to solve the issue of food waste and carbon emissions. According to the brand, an estimated 30,000 tons of apple waste is discarded, and repurposing the waste instead has virtually no carbon footprint.
Bags Made of Cactus, Apples, or Grapes are leather-alternatives used by brands
