While the classic luxury experience was crafted to surprise and delight, a new narrative is gaining ground, with deep roots in preserving the beauty of the natural world and its resources through well-publicised circular initiatives.

International fashion and leathergoods houses Gucci, Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen and Brioni all call luxury conglomerate Kering home. Literally derived from the Breton word ker, which means home or a place to live, Paris-based Kering is supposed to be pronounced like the English word “caring” (according to its website). Particularly harmonious with this self-portrayal is the group’s determination to assert its duty of care for our common home, the Earth, a line of thinking it plainly, yet boldly, weaves throughout its Circularity ambition: coming full circle.

The foundational threads to the concept of a closed loop, with which Kering intends to encircle its stable of luxury brands, at least, are inevitably linked to regenerative agriculture and, at its very root, healthy soil, the group tells readers of the report. It describes this as the feeder-like starting point for the natural and renewable materials it uses, including leather, wool, cashmere and cotton. According to the document, the François-Henri Pinault-controlled company’s environmental profit and loss tool has marked tier four of its supply chain - “that is, with the goat herders, in the cotton fields and the cattle pastures” – as the cradle for its “biggest” environmental impacts, amounting to around 32%.

How the group plots the “coming full circle” aspect of its ongoing ambitions, with regard to handling leather and finished leathergoods according to circular economy principles, is arguably of greatest interest to the wider leather industry. Here, World Leather unpicks the most salient parts of the report with regard to Kering’s circular leather efforts across three of its luxury houses, in particular: Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga.

Natural cycles

In direct homage to the role of nature in the leathergoods ecosystem, the year 2020 alone saw Florence-headquartered Gucci collect 25 tonnes of leather offcuts and make them available for reuse as fertiliser, the group says. Further, the brand recovered and was able to reclaim or recycle 27 tonnes of leather scraps as part of its in-house Gucci-Up (“Gucci upcycling”) scheme between 2018 and 2020. This was achieved via close collaboration with Italian non-governmental organisations and social cooperatives, although the report does not go into detail. Also in 2020, the house moved to reuse all its discontinued non-branded leathers (and fabrics) either internally or via “external channels”, including donating these materials to non-profits.

Similarly, Paris-based Saint Laurent has begun to incorporate surplus leather from its handbag creations into the design of matching small leathergoods. Kering states that the majority of leather cutting now takes place within Saint Laurent’s own ateliers, so as to enhance efficiency and ensure access to the “most advanced” technology. Interestingly, the brand reports that over the past few years an unspecified “exclusive partnership” has allowed it to make “new” leather materials in place of virgin ones through upcycling its own leather cuttings. According to Kering, the latest example of this is due to be launched for autumn-winter 2021, as part of the house’s Sunset line of leathergoods.

Meanwhile, Saint Laurent says that most of the new stores it is opening throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa have been decorated (back of house) with the leather offcuts from previous collections, which have been assembled into flooring. Reusing existing leather in this way has “significantly” reduced the brand’s overall environmental impact, Kering suggests. Not only does the conglomerate recognise that leather is long-lasting (able to be used and later reused), but it further acknowledges that recycling leather plays a sizeable part in its brands’ sustainable production of luxury leathergoods and interiors.

With Balenciaga the group points to the brand’s spring-summer and autumn-winter 2021 collections, which it describes as featuring “sustainable” materials and the upcycling of second-hand clothing and accessories, including purchased deadstock or surplus military boots, motorbike trousers and women’s leather shoes. 93.5% of all virgin materials used in the collection have met Kering’s own, open-sourced, standards for sustainability in terms of raw materials and manufacturing processes, the group states in Circularity ambition.

Reconnecting materials

Finding a way to link all its houses under what it describes as a centralised dashboard is central to Kering’s broader circularity goals. Monitoring stock levels, with the intention of keeping goods in circulation across the group, is key. Using a data analysis method developed over the past two years, the group tracks the levels and location of each brand’s unsold or obsolete stock and subsequently incorporates employee friends and family sales, own-brand outlet organs and “pilot schemes” to extend the life of products.

Sharing surplus fabrics among ateliers is another crucial thread to the wider Kering circularity tapestry, with upcycling and recycling considered the best option for logo-branded materials that cannot otherwise be sold or reused. The group is currently working with engineers CETI (Centre Européen des Textiles Innovants) and the ESTIA institute of technology in south-west France to develop ways to robotically disassemble shoes, handbags and complex clothing, which it hopes will allow for the recycling or reintroduction of finished articles’ component parts as raw materials. Learning how a product is taken apart will in turn feed back into the design process, the report says, enabling group fashion and leathergoods designers to rethink their creative efforts in a style that makes eventual disassembly and recycling easier, building in circularity. 

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