Designer leaps to the defence of leather
Paris-based designer Jérôme Dreyfuss has issued a press release to counter negative messages about leather and to highlight the pitfalls accessories brands face in choosing substitute materials.
Mr Dreyfuss said he had decided to speak up because he was “tired of hearing anything and everything about the supposed damage leather does to the planet”.
His brand, La Maison Jérôme Dreyfuss, which has four boutiques in different parts of Paris, sources all of its leather in Europe, mostly in France and Italy. It has long argued that one of the best things consumers can do to lower the fashion sector’s carbon footprint is buy fewer products, but to choose things of quality and use them for a long time. Its position is that products made from responsibly produced leather lend themselves perfectly to this.
In the press release, Mr Dreyfuss said that synthetic substitutes that use some material from corn or apple or other bio-based materials may appear attractive, but that in reality most of them rely on polyurethane coating to give them “any sort of resistance”. He added that, without polyurethane, “you could not use any of these materials to produce a tote bag or a pair of sneakers”.
