Gucci has created a new sustainable vegan leather

The fashion race towards alternative and sustainable materials, and especially towards vegan alteratives to leather, continues with Gucci presenting today the result of over two years of research: Demetra. It's a new material made of 77% of materials of plant origin, such as viscose and wood pulp from sustainable-growed forests together with bio-based polyurethane obtained from renewable sources. At the moment, the production of Demeter still uses synthetic materials but the next step in research and development will be precisely to reach a level of sustainability of 100%. The material was developed together with the Colonna Group and is already available for commercial use: Gucci has in fact accompanied the announcement with the launch of three new eco-friendly versions of the Basket, New Ace and Rhyton sneakers but in the future, the Demeter will also be used for bags and accessories.

If already a brand like Hermès has patented Sylvania together with the company Mycoworks and the Kering brands together with Stella McCartney, adidas and Lululemon have committed to using a similar material based on mushrooms, Mylo, for its collections, Gucci is the first brand to market on large scale materials produced with its vegan leather – also because the other bio-based materials are still at the prototype stage. During this initial phase, Gucci also announced that the material will be shared with the other brands of the Kering group while starting next year it will be available for the rest of the fashion industry. Of course, the material will not replace the leather, which Gucci is famous for, but will support it by offering the public an eco-friendly option.