Can We Find New Fabrics Instead Of Leather?

Behind the bright industry, there are many little known worries. For example, the global 25% insecticide is used for ordinary cotton. The large-scale cultivation of cotton consumes a lot of valuable water resources. Polyester fiber is dependent on non renewable energy sources such as oil and natural gas.

Luckily, some social responsibility conscious technology companies and

The brand has begun to make a difference.

Leather substitute

In itself, it is not an environment-friendly material. Cattle will consume a lot of resources in the process of raising, and the farts of cattle will also exacerbate the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere.

People began to reflect on whether they could find new fabrics instead of leather.

1) Pi n ATEX: make shoes with Pineapple leaves.

Spanish leather expert Carmen Hijosa took 7 years to develop a special fabric that can replace leather Pi n ATEX, which is made from pineapple leaf fiber.

The production of Pi n. ATEX does not require land, water, pesticides, fertilizers, nor waste.

Hijosa hired local farmers in Philippines to collect Pineapple leaves and extract fibers from them. All these fibers were shipped to Spain and processed into non-woven fabrics and sold to all parts of the world.

These non-woven materials and canvas have a similar appearance, including four colors, dark gray, cream, brown, metal gold, hard texture, mass production, after printing and dyeing can be processed into shoes, bags, furniture, and even extended to the automotive, aviation field.

Well known brands Puma and Camper have already used this fabric to produce samples.

Some international companies have begun selling handbags, boots and flat shoes made of this material.

2) SCOBY: making imitation leather with tea leaves.

Like Hijosa, Young-A Lee, an associate professor of fashion design at Iowa State University, and her team tried to replace traditional clothing materials, especially leather products, with special fiber materials produced by tea by-products.

In the lab where Lee works, each material box contains gelatinous films made of cellulose fibers.

This cellulose fiber is a by-product of Kombucha, which requires bacteria and yeast symbiont (SCOBY) to absorb nutrients from the mixture of vinegar and sugar.

After molding and drying, SCOBY is similar to leather in nature and can be used to make garments, shoes and handbags.

3) Don Quichosse: shoes made from fish skin.

It's still a search for leather alternatives. The famous French shoemaker, Jean-Jacques Houyou, uses fish skin to make leather. It sounds fantastic, and it doesn't smell fishy.

Houyou's company will launch the world's first trout skin fishermen's shoes series in France, including seven kinds of laminated shoes and sandals with a price of about 120 euros per pair.

The series is made from trout skin made from cold mountain spring in Pyrenees, France.

Some luxury shoe brands have also launched fish skin shoes: the Spanish shoe design master Manolo Blahnik has launched the "fish skin environmental sandals" with a price of 800 euros. The Brazil shoe brand Osklen also launched trout skin sports shoes Arpoador, priced at $580, which used to make shoes with Amazon giant bony tongue fish skin.

4) Modern Meadow: laboratory planting "dermis"

There are even companies trying to "grow" a handbag directly in the laboratory, which is technically possible.

Modern Meadow, a start-up company in New York, is planting this material in the laboratory.

Studies have shown that PVC materials (commonly used in artificial leather) cause cancer risks, while other petroleum based materials can cause environmental pollution.

A test in 2014 showed that one piece of every five artificial leather products contained lead.

Therefore, if the cowhide planted in this laboratory can be marketed, it will indeed become the gospel of the industry.

Degradable slurry

At present, the global demand for textiles is 90 million tons per year. Cotton and viscose fibers account for only 1/3 of the total. The rest are mainly petroleum based materials, such as polyester, spandex and nylon.

By extending the service life of existing natural materials to expand the total resources, it is imperative for consumers and large fashion companies.

5) alternative textile fibers "Tencel"

Cotton prices soared in 2011, increasing the demand for the global viscose fiber (Viscose, the main wood pulp textile fiber) and the Tencl (Tencel).

Tencel was first invented in the 70 era of the last century. It is more environmentally friendly than viscose fiber. It is also the main alternative textile fiber from wood pulp at present, and can be pformed into textile fabrics.

H&M and IKEA are all typical enterprises of sustainable development in their respective fields. They are very willing to cooperate with degradable pulp manufacturers to sell environmentally friendly products produced by local forest resources.

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6) re:newel AB: turn old clothes into high quality environmental protection fibers.

Considering that the present viscose fiber or soluble fiber is mainly obtained from trees, re:newcell AB, a Swedish textile recycling company, has developed a new technology - cellulose based textile fiber recovery process, which can pform waste textiles such as jeans and T-shirts into new dissolving wood pulp, which can greatly extend the use time of human resources.

Reuse of old clothes

Fashion is popular in retro fashion, but some companies do not deliberately make an old fashions, but use real old fabrics to make designs.

7) Levi 's environmental jeans: water saving and regenerated cotton

Levi s, the famous American jeans manufacturer, has been developing environmental protection very early.

The Levi s WaterLess series, which was first introduced, consumes 28% less water. In 2012, the new WaterLess series advocated recycling plastic bottles and food pallets and then reusing them.

The 300 thousand spring jeans of 2013 spring have recovered 360 million plastic bottles and pallets, and this figure will increase as productivity increases.

The ultimate goal of the WaterLess series is to save water by 96%. At present, the series has saved 17 thousand and 200 liters of water.

8) Freitag biodegradable jeans

Freitag, Zurich, Switzerland, is known for its recycling of discarded trucks. Its home is best known for its environmental protection bags.

Thanks to this, the company has rich experience in the sustainable utilization of materials.

Last year they introduced a biodegradable pair of jeans.

The jeans are made from flax, cotton and linen, yarn spinning and woven fabrics, and their chemical composition is minimal and no bleaching.

9) Worn Again separating polyester fibers from old clothes.

Worn Again's textile chemical recovery technology in the United Kingdom has created a "recycling resource mode" for textiles.

They extract polyester fibers and cotton yarns from old or unused clothing and textiles, and use this separation technology to make recycled polyester fibers and cellulose compounds into new fabrics.

This technology solves the first difficulty of textile recycling: how to separate mixed fiber garments and how to separate pigment and other impurities from polyester fiber and fiber composite.

Tests have been carried out in the supply chain of H&M and Puma.

10) a new direction of research for Swedish scientists: making clothes with greenhouse gases and air.

At present, the production of consumer goods will release a large amount of greenhouse gases.

In response to this problem, the Swedish innovation environment research organization Smart Textiles joined hands with University of Bor s s to integrate the new methane filtration method into the textile technology, adding the equivalent amount of methane captured from the atmosphere to the textile fabric, effectively reducing the greenhouse effect.

About sustainable fashion

Sustainable fashion is also known as "eco fashion".

The purpose of putting forward this idea is to hope that the whole life cycle of a product from production to application can take into account its impact on the environment and society, consume less natural resources and reduce environmental pollution.

Sustainable fashion has gradually become the mainstream culture. More and more fashion consumers are losing interest in opaque and rough workmanship. They begin to look for clothes and accessories that conform to moral standards, wear and style.

It is not only famous brands that strive to "dye themselves green", but also emerge as the cutting-edge designer brand of "sustainable fashion" concept, such as men's designer brand 30 Year Sweatshirt by Tom Cridland, which uses organic cotton, which is known to be worn for 30 years; designer Valerie Goode's new series uses "peaceful silk", promises not to kill silkworms; Mosevic uses sundry pieces and resin to make sunglasses.