What is vegan leather? The innovative alternative to animal leather.
While not all fashion industry players are committed to finding solutions to moral and sustainability issues, some brands in the sector – like your favorite vegan sneaker supplier – are working hard to connect fashion and ethics. At the heart of this transformation is a profound rethinking of our traditional processes and practices, including the use of animal leather.
In this article, we explore the world of alternatives to animal leather, and we try to answer the big questions that come up when we approach the subject of imitation leather and other innovative cruelty-free solutions.
What is vegan leather?
Vegan imitation leather, faux leather, or synthetic leathers are a whole range of materials that are similar to animal leathers, because they are inspired by the grain of tanned animal skin, their rendering, their texture, and their shine. These materials are intended to transpose the rendering of leather and restore its physical characteristics (flexibility, elasticity, impermeability, durability, etc.), without using animal skin.
What is the composition of vegan faux leather?
Faux leathers can be made from polymers such as polyurethane (PU) or polyvinyl (PVC), but also from other plant substances such as cotton, cork, or even plant waste based on mushrooms, apples, cacti, grape marc and inedible cereals, as you can discover in our “Plant-based sneakers ” section.
What is made from vegan imitation leather?
Faux leather is commonly used in the manufacture of vegan shoes, handbags, wallets, clothing and other accessories . This versatility allows consumers to access a variety of products that are similar to those made from animal leather, but ethically different from the offering attached to classic leather, while maintaining its style and comfort.
What are the benefits of vegan synthetic leather?
Beyond the economic, technical and aesthetic interests that the manufacture of synthetic leather allows, producing materials imitating leather can serve various ethical interests.
To begin with, faux leathers can be produced to replace leather in order to preserve life and contribute to respecting animal welfare. If they do not include any animal matter in the glues and materials making up their coating, faux leathers are called vegan (vegan leathers), and identifiable as cruelty-free, like the materials used in the composition of COG sneakers .
Faux leathers can also be created for an ecological purpose . Indeed, the manufacture of traditional leather is done in a major part of the market outside of French territory, very often between Asia and Latin America, particularly in fast fashion .
This relocation is the cause of high greenhouse gas emissions. Added to the various nuisances that livestock farming has on the environment, it makes leather, in many cases, a material that is not very ecological and polluting. This is particularly the case for mineral leathers, whose skins are treated (tanned) using a process that uses chemical processes that, once released into nature, upset the balance of natural ecosystems.
Finally, as a direct consequence of the relocation of animal leather production sites, the leather industry has social and health repercussions on the health of workers in skin tanning factories, but also on the surrounding populations who pay the price of the evacuation of tannery products into the environment.
The production of synthetic leather can thus serve a social model with a philanthropic aim .
This of course implies that the production of its imitation leathers takes place in clean, secure and responsible workshops, offering consideration and respect for the rights of the women and men they employ.
With this in mind, our brand only uses imitation leather from European manufacturers to make our vegan sneakers and eco-responsible city shoes.
For manufacturers, using synthetic leathers therefore allows them to participate in the dissemination of responsible vegan fashion, to be part of a production model which preserves biodiversity, and helps to make the textile industry a sector with lower carbon emissions.
For the public, the interest in directing their purchases towards imitation leather or imitation nubuck products not only allows them to discover new alternatives, but also to take part in a moral approach, and to contribute to the development of a new, more conscious consumption model, respectful of humans, the environment, and any other form of living being.
Discover COG’s commitments here .
What does the law say about the term vegan leather?
Legally, the use of the word leather is only permitted to refer to a processed animal skin . In this respect, the term vegan leather is neither appropriate nor permitted in the context of promoting synthetic leather. We therefore refer to alternatives such as “vegan leather”, by calling these materials imitation leather, so as not to mislead the customer.
Also, in accordance with French regulations, companies are required to provide precise information on the composition of the products they distribute, including that of the raw materials that make up vegan imitation leathers, in order to ensure safety and transparency towards consumers.
For this reason, and because customer satisfaction is our priority, the COG vegan shoe development team pays particular attention to the choice of synthetic materials that make up our shoes. Transparency is the mother of trust; find the details of the composition of each of the pairs making up our collections on the product sheet of our models.
Discover our Wallace black grape high-top sneakers, Winton white-gold , and our Aïko black oxford shoes, all three made from imitation leather made from plant waste.
Vegan faux leathers and COG shoes.
By ordering from COG, you are guaranteed to choose a pair of 100% cruelty-free shoes, meaning that All of our collections are vegan . We ban animal materials in favor of high-quality plant-based and recycled materials as much as possible, such as imitation leather made from grape marc waste, or imitation leather made from cereals.
Plastic materials are essential to ensure the hold and durability of organic materials, and by extension, the strength of shoes. These materials are largely recycled, and some are fished out of the sea to help clean up coastal pollution.
Visit theOur Materials page to learn more about the range of materials that make up your shoes.
What are the limits of vegan faux leather?
Discussing the qualities of a solution with honesty and transparency also means knowing how to appreciate its weaknesses and the areas for improvement. Despite their many advantages, imitation leathers, like any material, have their weaknesses and limitations.
Let's see these together.
At the end of their life, synthetic leathers can pose challenges in terms of recycling and waste management. This is due in particular to the fact that synthetic leathers are composed of different amalgamated materials, which are difficult to separate, and which are essentially plastic materials.
Moreover, beyond their advantageous creative and technical properties, plastic polymers are no longer recyclable as soon as the plastic fibers are mixed with other materials. In this respect, these products are not recyclable indefinitely .
In addition, through wear and tear, plastic materials emit micro particles that can harm terrestrial and marine ecosystems .
COG's aside to denounce greenwashing.
Have you noticed that our editorials do not position our vegan shoes as carbon neutral or zero waste? Not that eco-responsibility is not a priority for us, on the contrary!
But if these expressions constitute attractive commercial arguments to sell the merits of products that are perfectly ecological, at COG we consider that all activity induces emissions (even when these are reduced), and therefore for us, this kind of discourse constitutes a form of greenwashing from which we wish to stay away.
To ensure that our vegan shoes are eco-friendly, we choose transparency , and we work hard to find the best suited and most responsible solutions on the market.
The limits of vegan faux leather, continued.
Just like leathers and other textile materials, not all imitation leathers are of equal quality, nor are they always comparable in terms of durability.
As mentioned in our section custom prices , the price of a synthetic material can go from single to quintuple, when the composition of an article is made of high quality vegan imitation leathers.
Also, the work of selecting materials is fundamental in the development phase of a faux leather shoe, since it influences not only the lifespan of an item, but also its sale price.
In the case of COG, the mission of our development team is therefore not limited to offering shoes and sneakers that meet design and comfort criteria, but also to managing to retain recycled, robust and affordable alternatives .
Your opinions and feedback on our products are very valuable to us! Never hesitate to share them with us.
Leather is nothing more or less than transformed skin, and before becoming leather, a skin is a complex living tissue, with unique properties. Creating materials as flexible, breathable, waterproof and resistant as leather is no easy feat, but today, organic plant-based and cruelty-free materials such as faux plant-based leathers made from grapes or apples already give comparable results.
Faux leathers, a solution for the future.
The limitations of synthetic materials depend on the time and investment put into their development.
So, tomorrow, imitation leathers will certainly not only be more ecological, but also more durable than real leather.
For now, in addition to already presenting fantastic technical characteristics, synthetic materials also have the merit of being cruelty-free, preserving animal life and nature ; and if only for that, we say a big yes to these new alternatives .
