Desserto, the Mexican biomaterials company behind cactus leather, has turned Zacatecas’s guajillo chili harvest into Chili Leather, a limited-edition alternative rooted in the region’s agricultural calendar and culinary identity.
Zacatecas produces more than 70,000 tons of guajillo chili a year, more than any other Mexican state, and it sits among five states — alongside Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Jalisco — that together account for 67.9 percent of the country’s chili pepper output. It is into that landscape that Desserto, the Mexican biomaterials company known for turning prickly pear cactus into a leather alternative, has planted its newest experiment: a limited-edition fabric it calls Chili Leather, made using guajillo chili grown in Zacatecas.
The material folds guajillo into Desserto’s proprietary formula as a source of natural pigment and organic compound, producing sheets in a rich, warm tone the company ties to the pepper’s own smoky, deep-red character. Because it depends on the guajillo harvest, Desserto is releasing Chili Leather only in limited runs tied to the growing season, with each batch varying slightly from the one before it, more akin to a single-origin harvest than a standardized bolt of fabric. It is, as with the company’s other lines, made without phthalates, PVC, or the toxic chemicals Desserto has built its reputation on avoiding, and the company is pitching it toward high-end fashion and accessory designers rather than mass production, treating scarcity as part of the material’s appeal.
“This is Mexico you can feel,” the company said in its launch announcement. “It’s bold, it’s vibrant, it has heat—and it has heart.”
Desserto was founded in 2019 by Adrián López Velarde and Marte Cázarez, two Mexican entrepreneurs who left their corporate jobs to test whether the country’s ubiquitous prickly pear cactus could be turned into something durable enough to replace animal hide. “We decided to quit our jobs and focus on developing a plant-based material which could meet the high-quality standards,” López Velarde said in a 2020 interview. Cázarez has said the choice of cactus was rooted as much in national symbolism, the plant appears on Mexico’s flag, as in practicality.
“Cactus was the ideal plant to work with because of its low environmental footprint,” she told the publication. “It does not require water irrigation systems to grow, nor pesticides or herbicides.” López Velarde has said the company’s cactus-based fabrics cut water consumption by roughly 20 percent compared with conventional leather production, and Cázarez has said the material breaks down within five years, rather than the decades typical of other synthetic fibers.
That cactus leather has since traveled well past Zacatecas and Jalisco, turning up in a Karl Lagerfeld accessories line and in H&M’s Science Story collection, among other partnerships built over the six years since the company’s founding. Desserto has also collaborated with BMW on vegan interior materials, received awards from PETA for its cruelty-free approach, and earned certification from V-Label, the vegan product label that now covers more than 40,000 certified products worldwide. Its own cactus leather even made its way into a pair of Tilt 350 boxing gloves developed with Adidas Boxing. “We believe in leaving a big footprint in the ring, but a small footprint on the ground,” Christophe Dessales, managing director of Adidas Boxing, said of that collaboration.
Chili Leather is staying closer to home, at least for now — it’s not a replacement for cactus leather — more a ceremonial companion to it. “It is a celebration of seasonality and locality, available only in limited quantities to honor the harvest cycles of guajillo chili,” Desserto says. “Each batch is unique, making every product crafted from it a collectible piece of innovation.”
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