Stella McCartney’s Vegan Leather Has Been Fooling People

Stella McCartney doesn’t use leather, skins, or fur in any of her products — a factoid known by her acolytes. “Other than the obvious ethical issues surrounding the culling of animals for their hides,” the designer explains on her website, “in recent years, studies by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and NGOs such as PETA have discovered that the environmental impact caused by our reliance on meat and its by-products is not sustainable.” And, she reiterates her stance in the “Sustainability Question and Answers” section, if you can’t believe those Falabella bags aren’t leather.

But, you wouldn’t be alone. At her pre-summer 2015 presentation in Milan, she told the Telegraph, “It’s all real skins! Don’t tell anyone! I’ve just decided that all that environmentally friendly stuff is boring,” swiftly adding, “No, no, no — I’m joking: We use vegetable coatings and materials and we are really pushing boundaries in a sustainable manner without sacrificing style in any way. Half of the women here…probably don’t even know the bags aren’t leather, and I find that very exciting.” Whatever helps the Milanese sleep at night (and it likely isn’t the wide selection of pleather at Sempre 21). (The Telegraph)