Winners of Mainland China’s Real Leather. Stay Different. student design competition announced
The China Student Design Competition has concluded and the winners have been announced!
Vegan leather, pleather, leatherette – despite their names there is one thing all these materials have in common – they are not leather.
There is no such thing as vegan leather. Leather comes from the hide of an animal. Vegan describes foods and materials that do not come from animals. The two words cannot combine.
The term was coined as a marketing device, drawing on the connection of the word ‘vegan’ with natural, which in most cases for leather alternatives does not ring true. Leather alternatives, including plant-based ones, go through many processes in their production, and most of them are plastic-based and derived from fossil fuel.
Putting aside the misuse of the word ‘leather’… Synthetic or artificial leathers are designed to look like leather, often with texture added to mimic the surface of natural cowhide. They are usually made from oil-derived plastic and coated with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polyurethane (PU). Other names for synthetic leather include:
There are some materials that are being offered as alternatives to leather that are plant based. Because most of these lack the structural integrity and durability of leather they often rely on plastics as part of the manufacturing process. In fact, most of these materials are more than 50% plastic. The benefit of non-plastic material is that it biodegrades faster; unfortunately, oil-derived plastics or natural products that are impregnated with plastics take hundreds of years to decompose. Leather normally takes no longer than 50 to biodegrade.
Plant-based alternatives include:
In March 2021 the Research Institute for Leather and Synthetic Materials (FILK) conducted research into materials marketed as alternatives to leather, analysing their composition and durability.
Its main conclusion was that “Leather is unique. So far, it has not been possible to replace leather.”
Read more on the FILK report here.
The China Student Design Competition has concluded and the winners have been announced!
The famous shell-toed sneaker has shod millions of fashionable feet over the years, and now it’s taking a trip upmarket.
First round judging for China’s ‘Real Leather’ student design competition is finished - with more than 400 entries from design students from the top design schools in China now cut down to just 45 finalists.
We unveil the winner and her design as featured on the front cover of Rollacoaster magazine and modelled by Sano Turdiev
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