Most of our collection is made from recycled synthetic fabrics, and we also have a small but growing cohort of styles made from bio-based materials.

Beyond well-recognised fabrics like cotton, our bio-based collection includes some exciting new-gen materials: Italian Uppeal™ AppleSkin, Desserto Cactus 'Leather', and MIRUM®.

We start from a premise of not using any animal products in our collections. From there, we aim to reduce our use of synthetic materials by preferencing recycled or bio-based fabrics.

Bio-based materials are those derived from plants + other renewable agricultural materials. This can be the entire material when developing a vegan leather or a portion of it.

Uppeal™ AppleSkin, MIRUM® and Desserto's organic cactus leather alternative all beautifully emulate the look + feel of animal leather with a far lower environmental impact + none of the cruelty.

Over the past 5 years, the pace of material development has been dramatic – biomass from cactus, mango, apple, mycelium, grape, orange, corn, banana leaves + bamboo have been utilised to create fabrics designed to take on the animal leather fashion market.

We currently use three bio-based vegan 'leather' fabrics in our collection:

Italian Uppeal™ AppleSkin is made from 25% apple waste, with polyurethane added to ensure the product is robust + waterproof.

MIRUM® is made with natural nutrient + bioneutral ingredients, such as natural rubber, plant-based oils, natural pigments, and agri-waste like rice hulls and coconut fibres. It has a 10x lower carbon footprint than animal leather.

Desserto organic cactus fabric utilises the dried leaves of cactus as the key building block for adding to a fabric base. The biomass (dried/ground cactus) is mixed with a water-based polyurethane + pigments to form the surface treatment for the substrate fabric, often being cotton or cotton/polyester.

New gen bio-based materials are still in their relative infancy, with time + support needed for them to grow and scale. This means they are a higher cost - to business and therefore to the customer - and have a smaller range of colours + textures than existing synthetic fabrics.

Organisations developing these kinds of materials are pioneers. It will take time for barriers to entry to lower so they can be used by more + more brands, and get into the hands of more people.

We are committed to growing our bio-based offering + continue to explore new fabrications and innovations.