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I was vending at a day market in San Francisco, and a girl walked by in complete disgust over a vendor selling vintage furs down the road. She was appalled, she wanted backup of how awful it was, and she proceeded to tell me how selling fur (even 80-year old vintage) had been outlawed in SF. She was looking through my collection of leather belts as she ranted, I don’t think she wanted to buy anything, I think she was just looking, but her friend than said, “Well, really, what’s the difference between leather and fur?”
I stopped, what is the difference? Am I in the wrong EQUALLY for making and selling leather goods? And then I realized, no, I’m not- at least not in my opinion. Leather is a byproduct that comes as a result of people eating animals. Whereas with fur, the animal is being killed for its fur alone, just like other exotic animals that have been killed for their tusks, teeth, and horns. When’s the last time you had chinchilla, fox or mink for dinner? I’m guessing never. But you’ve probably eaten beef, lamb and goat meat at some point in your life. For the record, I grew up in a family that ate meat, but have turned into a pescatorean in adult life. That’s my choice, and I have my reasons behind it, one of them being the fact that I just don’t like the taste of meat, another being that I understand the impact on the environment of animal consumption, and even another which is spiritual- the Bhagavad Gita says “you are what you eat.”
Before we go any further, YES, the tanning and dyeing of leather is not good for the environment. And I hear you vegans, I’ve been listening. I responded with my recycled rubber and fabric collections. Oddly enough, the recycled rubber collection has become a line very dear to my heart now. The profits from manufacturing go to the Indian non-profit, Swechha, which has been paving the way for environmental reform since before it was popular to even care (we have two more articles about them posted). I love working with them, and supporting what they do, and I wouldn’t have even ventured down that road if it hadn’t been for the vegans lecturing me, so thank you for the lectures. I listened.
But I still produce leather pieces, and lately, maybe because I live in Los Angeles, that has been getting a lot of heat. So here’s something I’ve never pushed as a selling point but which I just realized I should have been saying all along. All the leather pieces we make, with the exception of black ones, are produced with deadstock leather. I’m using deadstock leather from Indonesia, a country that consumes large amounts of goat and lamb as a part of their daily diet. So in terms of using leather, I feel like I’m doing it in one of the best ways possible.
Here’s a definition:
deadstock fabric: Textile mills and garments factories typically have vast amounts of left over fabric, known as deadstock fabric. These are rolls of fabric that are left after a garment production run, fabric that was dyed the wrong colour, or surplus fabric that is unsold by the textile mills and left in storage.
Basically I get the leftovers from larger manufacturers, the scraps- which is one reason why I have a million colors if you’ve ever seen my booth. Most of those pieces are one to five of a kind, because that’s all of that was available for that color. I’ve always liked that I have so many limited edition pieces, because it means that my customers all get to look different from each other and express their individuality. However, I will admit, it is the biggest pain in the ass ever to take pictures of all of those different colors for the website and etsy. Not my favorite designer duty.
Wild JUNE note on deadstock leather- some companies will say they use recycled leather because they are using deadstock leather. I think this is an inappropriate usage of the word recycled. Using deadstock leather is more like using the remainder of all your vegetables to make a soup. You wouldn’t call this recycled soup, but kudos to you for not wasting your food.
What about fake/vegan leather you might ask? Oh you mean polyurethane leather? Let’s have a chat about that. If the concern is saving the animals, congratulations, Bambi is safe. But if the concern is protecting the environment, polyurethane (PU, an appropriate abbreviation) is just what it sounds like, synthetic, fake, ….plastic! It’s cheaper than real leather, but it’s not biodegradable, and the amount of chemicals released into the oceans and rivers as a result of it is ridiculous. Basically you saved Bambi and gave him toxic water to drink. Furthermore, while there are some high quality polyurethane leathers out there, the majority of it is not going to last you more than a year or two, compared to leather which will normally last 5-7 years for regular usage. I feel like I see PU leather in fast fashion a lot, and if we’re going to work towards a better future, fast fashion (production of cheap, shitty-quality goods) is one of the things that needs to go.
What about pineapple leather, mushroom leather, cork, ocean leather? I’m still doing my research on these and trying to find ones that work for my line, but I'm working on it. If all goes according to plan, I should have some pieces made from alternative leathers coming out in May. One of the problems I’ve encountered with alternative leathers though, is that everything I've seen so far, is incredibly expensive. I’m talking 5-10x more in cost than the pieces I’m producing now. Who wants to pay two grand for a holster? Considering it’s made from a natural alternative to leather, I’m sure some people do. Another problem is that a lot of these new leathers are produced in the U.K. and the U.S. and factories are located in developing countries. The shipping bill on that is not going to be cheap, or sustainable. So why don’t I manufacture in America? I could manufacture in America, but my prices would again go up exponentially, and sad to say, but quality might suffer.
People have been using leather since the cave man days, and natural leather alternatives is an industry which is at the fetus level of development in comparison. I want to support that technology advancing. However, at the moment, I wouldn’t be able to offer you a product in pineapple leather or ocean kelp for a price that most of my customers would want to pay. I'm still going to try though :)
There is still the overlying problem of the industrial waste that is produced when manufacturing fashion. This includes the MAJORITY of textiles. If a fashion company is the exception to this rule, and using natural dyes with their textiles, they will tell you, because it is a complete rarity, more expensive on their part and more time consuming. As a global world, we used to use natural dyes on a large scale, and then synthetic dyes became cheaper and easier. We thought we were taking two steps forward, but really we were taking a step back.
Dyeing of any textile with a synthetic dye requires the usage of chemicals and a lot of water to wash out the remaining dye, which then goes into our rivers and seas. This isn’t sustainable, neither is the tanning of leather, and it’s where I feel the biggest personal ouch about my business’s carbon footprint on the environment. Again, I’m using deadstock leather though, so it was pre-dyed and tanned for a different company’s consumption and I’m using the scraps, meaning Wild JUNE is not putting chemicals into the environment personally. However, this is a problem within the fashion industry at large, not just for this small independent business.
What are your thoughts on the matter? How much of an increase in price would you be willing to pay for something made from a coconut or pineapple leather, if that option was available to you?
