Is vegan leather dead? Or is it just evolving as luxury houses embrace circular materials like recycled leather?
Constantly increasing her use of eco materials, British designer Stella McCartney has been chasing vegan leather alternatives for years. “I have never used leather in any of my collections,” the designer notes on the label’s website. She’s worked instead, like a growing number of labels, with alternative materials including Mirum, mycelium, and grape leather, to name a few.
Last spring, the house delivered a visible proof point: McCartney’s collection achieved a 91 percent “sustainability rate,” incorporating a silver handbag made from fungi leather. That bag wasn’t just a prop. It signalled how far the materials strategy has progressed from synthetic plastic-based faux leathers toward biologically derived alternatives that can compete, at least on the runway, with the aspirational quality of hide. Alongside animal rights organization PETA, McCartney revived the group’s “I’d Rather Go Naked” campaign, once used to protest fur, to shine the spotlight on leather’s dark side.
Leather’s environmental and health footprint is deep and complex. On the climate side, it’s intimately tied to animal agriculture: cattle rearing emits methane, drives deforestation, and demands land, water, and feed inputs. Converting raw hides into finished leather is also resource-intensive: tanning can require up to 2.5 kg of chemicals per kilogram of hide and up to 250 liters of water, generating solid waste and chemical effluent at each step. Producing one square meter of cow leather yields roughly 17 kg CO₂e just from processing stages, while upstream impacts (animal rearing, land use) push the full lifecycle cost to an estimated 110 kg CO₂e per square meter.
Health risks are also significant, especially for workers and nearby communities. The tanning industry relies heavily on chromium salts, formaldehyde, arsenic, volatile organic compounds, and a suite of other toxic agents. Chronic exposure in tanneries has been linked to respiratory diseases, skin disorders, and elevated cancer risks. A 2025 study flagged long-term dermal exposure to chromium in leather products as potentially both noncarcinogenic and carcinogenic, underscoring that risks can persist beyond the factory floor.
Across the luxury landscape, a few brands are staking their identities on vegan or alternative leathers, with different strategies and degrees of commitment. Ganni, for example, phased out new animal leather in 2023, shifting instead to bio-based materials such as Vegea (a grape-waste leather), and even producing the first jacket made from bacteria. While it still reserves the use of recycled leather as a “last resort,” the move toward novel materials signals a revaluation of materials trade-offs.
Hermès, renowned for its heritage leather Birkins, has also tested collaborations with mycelium for its travel bag lines. Another emergent name, von Holzhausen, is pushing into the same realm with its plant-based materials designed to be fully biodegradable and compostable.
The global vegan leather market is expanding rapidly. Verified Market Research projects the sector to grow from roughly $10.6 billion in 2024 to $25.4 billion by 2032 — an annual growth rate of about 11 percent — while plant-based vegan leathers specifically are forecast to quadruple to $8.2 billion by 2033. Recycled leather, a parallel and increasingly overlapping market, is projected to reach nearly $48 billion by 2031.
But is that enough?
In a recent Substack essay, Alden Wicker of EcoCult suggested that the once-hopeful era of animal-free materials had stumbled. She cited the shuttering or stalling of early leaders like Bolt Threads, Natural Fiber Welding, and Modern Meadow, as well as the disappearance of fruit- and cactus-based leathers from mainstream collections.
“Plastic-free, plant-based, high-quality vegan leather is still out of reach,” she wrote, eulogizing vegan fashion as much of the innovation promised over the last decade has yet to reach scale or durability. The analysis was not without merit. Some pioneering materials remain reliant on polyurethane or chemical binders, raising questions about environmental safety and long-term wearability. But to read the setbacks as death is to miss the broader curve of innovation, which is often a slow bend from hype to stability that every transformative material must navigate.
Vegan materials’ next chapter
The vegan fashion movement was always more laboratory than runway, a testing ground for what happens when biotechnology and design intertwine. If the first phase was about proving what was possible, the current one is about proving what works. McCartney’s plant-based fibers mark the start of that shift, but she is far from alone.
Von Holzhausen’s Liquidplant and Banbū leathers are fully biodegradable and made using renewable, plant-based chemistry. These materials are not only vegan; they are engineered for circularity, offering measurable reductions in carbon emissions compared with animal hides.
Meanwhile, other companies are rethinking what vegan innovation means. Ganni has been testing Vegea’s wine-waste material across accessories and outerwear, while Pangaia’s research collective continues to explore polymers derived from natural sugars and agricultural byproducts.
In Italy, Sqim is developing a biobased leather that combines agricultural residues with natural latex to create a soft, durable surface without petroleum. And Stella McCartney’s Fevvers may well be the gateway to a broader class of nature-identical fibers that replace animal-derived components entirely.
The failures Wicker describes are part of the industry’s natural correction. Many first-generation materials were, perhaps, ahead of their time. Now, with regulations tightening around carbon disclosure and greenwashing, and with growing consumer literacy around sustainability, the second generation of vegan textiles is emerging.
The proof is in the partnerships. McCartney’s ongoing work with Bolt Threads before its closure laid the groundwork for other mycelium-based experiments now pursued by MycoWorks, whose Reishi material is gaining traction in furniture and small-scale luxury projects. European design houses are quietly incorporating next-gen fibers into accessories, while startups in South Korea and Japan are developing seaweed and algae-based fabrics that promise full biodegradability.
There are also notable efforts like the fully regenerative, biodegradable sneakers made in partnership between Unless and Under Armour, which not only keep animal-based materials out of the design, but also eschew plastic.
Regenerated and upcycled materials from rubber to nylon to leather are becoming part of the fabric of everyday production. Prada’s Re-Nylon line, built around Econyl (regenerated nylon made from ocean and landfill waste), continues to expand across accessories and fashion. Meanwhile, LVMH reports that 31 percent of materials used across its Maisons (including packaging) in 2024 were recycled, and that it recycled 290,230 meters of material in that year alone as part of its circular design initiatives.
The market metrics underline this shift. In 2024, the upcycled fashion sector was estimated to be worth nearly $10 billion globally, and projections suggest it could nearly double in the next decade.
Why upcycled leather matters
One of the busiest areas of upcycling is happening in the leather sector. The most visible example is Coach and its circular sub-brand Coachtopia, which is leveraging Gen Phoenix’s recycled-leather fiber technology to integrate scrap leather into new handbags. The firm has announced a three-year purchase agreement and intends to launch Coach Classic handbags using Gen Phoenix materials, rolling it out widely in 2026. Coachtopia pieces already boast up to 72 percent upcycled materials in some designs, and the brand claims the carbon footprint can be 71 percent lower than comparable new leather models.
“What our partnership has done is allowed us to take our leather expertise, our understanding of the consumer and luxury, and add that to what Gen Phoenix does [in] sustainable, more industrial products. Taking this concept of going from airplane seats to luxury handbags is what our partnership created,” Coach chief executive officer Todd Kahn told WWD in January.
“What we’re trying to accomplish is something at scale, not a niche idea…We knew through our own consumer insight and research that the consumer loves sustainability [but] to put a big premium on it will not create anything at scale, which is what’s so important to us,” Kahn said.
Hermès’ Petit h atelier is famous for using leftover leather, wood, and other materials to craft limited-edition objects and small leather goods. And Maison Margiela now offers Recicla, a limited capsule made from recycled leather scraps and unsold inventory, giving dormant materials a renewed life.
Smaller labels also contribute: Munich’s MCM runs an Upcycle Project in which surplus napa and vachetta leathers from past collections are reused in limited handbags and apparel pieces. Scandinavian brand Deadwood builds much of its appeal around vintage and reclaimed leather.
In parallel, the British atelier Elvis & Kresse has long turned production off-cuts into luxury accessories. In collaboration with the Burberry Foundation, Elvis & Kresse committed to sourcing at least 120 tonnes of leather scraps from Burberry over five years for redevelopment into new goods (alongside reclaimed firehoses). This model shows how heritage supply chains can be retooled to divert waste at the source and preserve craftsmanship.
From ideology to integration
Vegan fashion’s first wave promised liberation from animal products through pure substitution; its second is defined by integration: melding science, craftsmanship, and circular logic. The ideological purity that once defined the space has given way to a more nuanced pursuit: minimizing harm through both innovation and responsibility. The quiet advance of brands like Pangaia, Ganni, and Stella McCartney shows that materials need not be fully divorced from nature to be ethical; they can be cultivated, regenerated, or repurposed with intention.
It’s tempting to imagine any new “vegan” leather as a blank slate, but the truth is, we already live in a sea of leather. Each year, the global industry produces billions of square meters of hide, with enormous volumes processed, cut, and discarded before ever reaching consumers. In European leather usage surveys, between ten and 39 percent of purchased leather ends up as waste before final assembly. That means, in any given season, a quarter of all leather entering factories could be reclaimed or upcycled rather than thrown away.
If innovation is to be strategic, the low-hanging fruit lies in better management of what already exists. Instead of betting solely on creating entirely new plant or lab leathers, there is a vast, under-utilized reservoir of material already in motion — leather scraps, offcuts, rejected hides, worn goods. Upcycling that feedstock, improving its properties, and reinvesting it into high-value applications may be the most responsible, scalable intervention in the near term.
So, is vegan fashion dead? Hardly. It is evolving, though — less evangelical, more engineering-driven, and better aligned with the realities of global production. What we’re witnessing isn’t an obituary; it’s the middle chapter of a movement learning to sustain itself. And the most sustainable option always will be using what we already have.
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