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Every day we spot a celebrity sporting a fancy (and expensive AF) leather bag and jacket that leaves us drooling. Like Nita Ambani’s Hermès Himalaya Birkin bag that costs a whopping Rs. 2.6 crore or Kareena Kapoor Khan’s Hermès bag that costs 6 times the rent of a plush South Delhi villa. Although the animal leather fashion accessories look dapper and chic, more than 1 billion animals are killed to meet demands for leather every year, said PETA.
Hence, to find an alternative to animal leather, two Mexican entrepreneurs Adrián López Velarde and Marte Cázarez launched the first organic leather made out of cactus. Known as Desserto, the vegan leather is made out of nopal (a cactus) making it a sustainable and cruelty-free alternative to animal leather, reported News18.
According to its website, Desserto, the ‘Cactus Vegan-Leather’, is partially biodegradable and has the technical specifications required by the fashion, leather goods, furniture and even automotive industries. Providing a perfect balance between sustainability and performance, it was first showcased last October 2019 in Milan, Italy.
According to reports, the nopal vegan leather has a high resistance and durability of a minimum of 10 years. It also has competitive features compared to animal or synthetic leather, like elasticity and being customizable and breathable.
Speaking about the unique leather, the entrepreneurs said the plant doesn’t need any water to grow and there are plenty of nopals available in the Mexican Republic. They added, “Our company is already working in big projects with major groups in different industries, and we already have a reaction capacity to make them come to fruition.”
Adrian and Marte came up with the idea after working in the furniture automotive and fashion industries. It was there where they identified that the problem of environmental pollution was serious. Hence, to reduce environmental impact, they decided to leave their jobs and started Adriano Di Marti, a company to focus on developing Desserto, which nowadays is known as cactus or nopal vegan leather.
The impact of Global warming is serious and the fashion industry does add fire to the fuel. Kudos to these entrepreneurs for coming up with a sustainable and environment-friendly alternative to animal leather.
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