Once upon a time, vegan leather was made of PVC, a very environmentally harmful synthetic material. And that was always my problem with many vegan brands: they were ethical, but terrible for the environment.
But things have changed!
I want to introduce you to the vegan and eco-conscious bag brand Kinds of Grace.
I love them for many reasons.
To begin with, they are a 100% vegan and cruelty-free brand, so they make sure that every single step of the production of their bags is ethical and completely animal-free – even down to the glue and thread used to assemble their bags! They also donate 20% of their profits to animal and environmental protection organisations.
They take care of the people that depend on them by guaranteeing a fair and ethical working environment, not only to the skilled artisans that make their bags, but to everyone else in their team.
And, of course, Kinds of Grace takes care of our environment. They use innovative low-impact materials and techniques to give us the prettiest bags with zero eco-guilt. Keep reading to learn more!
Vegan leather
Did you know that cow leather has the biggest environmental impact of all textile materials? Think about all the resources that are used from breeding the poor cow, all the way to the production of the leather.
This is a topic that can be easily overlooked, but leather production is incredibly food and water-intensive. Raising one cow requires a total of 1,890,000 litres of water, and almost half of the fields used for animal farming could be actually used as croplands.
Just imagine if all these resources were used towards more productive ends.
And don’t even get me started on the actual leather production. The leather tanning process is highly toxic – with toxic chemicals like chromium. There are lots of horror stories like the one of the city of Kanpur, in India, where local leather factories pour more than 50 million litres of toxic water into the Ganges daily.
Sounds terrible, right?
The obvious alternative to all this suffering and waste is vegan leather, of course. Vegan leather is commonly made of PVC, the least environmentally friendly synthetic product out there.
But now we have this other synthetic material called PU, which has a much lower environmental impact. It is the perfect material for vegan leather bags because it has that luxurious finish you’re looking for without putting your values on the line.
And of course, the impact of PU is much, much lower than that of animal leather. If you want to learn more, you can find here a comparison between the environmental impact of cow leather vs PU leather.
Kinds of Grace uses PU leather to fight animal cruelty and do better for our planet.
I absolutely love the clean lines of the Paradisio Polished Satchel. For me, it looks like a reinvented classic – the structured shape reminds me of a Birkin bag, but even more beautiful since it’s cruelty-free.
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Piñatex
You have no idea how excited I am about Piñatex. In this post, we talked about how researchers are developing plant-based alternatives to leather that are both eco-friendly and ethical.
So I was over the moon when I saw that Kinds of Grace is soon launching a collection of Piñatex bags.
Piñatex (piña=pinapple in Spanish) is made of pineapple leaf fibre. Usually, pineapple leaves are discarded, so the fact that they can be used by the fashion industry is amazing news for everyone: we avoid unnecessary waste, and we support fruit farmers by giving them profit for something that otherwise would be thrown away.
Also, Piñatex is becoming more common among vegan brands, and more affordable.
Do you get now why I’m excited about it?
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Vegan Wool
Wool is another natural material with a huge environmental impact in terms of global warming, ocean acidification and water use.
This environmental impact is even higher when we talk about intensive sheep farming. Sheep often live in small spaces and are victims of cruel and unethical treatment, such as the devastating practice of mulesing.
That’s why, instead of choosing exploitation and cruelty, you can go the ethical route with man-made wool.
The gorgeous tweed bags designed by Kinds of Grace are made of this cruelty-free, vegan and overall more sustainable alternative.
The Paeony Blush Tweed bag might be my favorite from the brand. I love the classy look of the tweed paired with the playful blush pink – so parisienne.
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Vegan silk
Some luxury bags, even when they’re not made with animal products on the outside, may have a silk inner lining. Nonsense, I know.
Silk is not a vegan material as silkworms are boiled and killed just to produce a small amount of silk.
The environmental impact of silk, just to make the amount necessary for a bag lining, can be as environmentally damaging as cow leather production.
All Kinds of Grace’s bags have vegan silk lining, which has a significantly lower impact than silk.
You can learn more about their materials here.
With all these alternatives why would we choose animal cruelty and environmental degradation?
Since I started my journey towards a more sustainable wardrobe, the one thing that has always been clear is that investing in handcrafted pieces made with quality materials definitely pays off.
As I always say, as a consumer we have the power to make the choice to be kind to people, kind to animals, and kind to the planet – so make your bag as kind as you are.
