Mike Redwood

Columnist

International Leather Maker

The leather industry possesses one of the world’s most sophisticated natural biomaterials, yet it consistently talks about it in the wrong way. In recent years, the persistent narrative has been defensive: “no cow is killed for leather”, “it’s a by‑product of the meat industry” and “methane should not be charged to leather”. While such framing is factually sound in it fails to position leather as the high‑performing, naturally engineered material built for skin contact, durability and systemic circularity that it is.

Scientifically, leather is a stabilised collagen biomaterial – a structure designed by nature to function next to living skin. Yet the industry rarely frames it that way and it is the very reason that hides and skins have been used by humans and humanoids since pre-history in almost every aspect of everyday life.

Instead, when confronted with critiques on animal welfare, pollution, chrome tanning, or deforestation, the tendency is to retreat into “it’s a byproduct” or “it’s a waste‑utilisation story”. That argument is also true, but it is strategically weak. It positions leather as a demotion from waste, not as a material of excellence.

Leather is invisible

Leather predates modern materials science and many skilled craft industries were built that depend upon its exceptional properties. The term “advanced materials” emerged from 20th century industries—petrochemicals, plastics, synthetic fibres, performance textiles—all built on polymer chemistry with a powerful scientific language. Leather, already a complex, empirically developed collagen‑based system, was marginalised from that discourse. As a result, when modern debates turn to biopolymers and new biomaterials, leather is oddly invisible.

Paradoxically, many laboratories trying to create next‑generation biomaterials are attempting to reproduce the dermal collagen architecture that leather already preserves. Tanners had grasped skin–material interaction long before microbiome science but used simple language and assumed brands and consumers understood. Yet when the conversation shifts to “bio‑based” or “natural” materials, leather appears as a fossil, not a benchmark.

Performance and circularity are not bolt‑on attributes for leather; they are systemic elements embedded in thousands of years of empirical craft. Tensile strength, stretch, breathability and ageing are outcomes of a complex matrix of collagen fibres, moisture‑buffering and biological compatibility that most textiles fight to approximate yet often fail to match even a standard leather.

Many of leather’s best qualities are hard to express with metrics but are vital nevertheless. Comfort next to the skin, tactile feedback and “ageing beautifully” are subtle, experiential and qualitative. Because they are quiet, they are easily dismissed—but that does not make them less important. Leather performs through complex, multi‑scale interactions, not through single‑parameter metrics, which makes it harder to explain quickly and even harder to sell in a world obsessed with specification‑sheet numbers.

In sustainability debates, materials are often reduced to carbon calculations and narrow life cycle assessment (LCA) comparisons. Leather’s value, however, lies more in longevity, repairability and slower consumption. These are vital in the modern world of nature depletion, rising seas and warming temperatures, but are not captured in the metrics. Demographic and geoeconomic shifts suggest that rapid GDP gains are behind us; in that context, durability and long product life become core strategic assets. Leather’s real advantage is not in being quick to produce, but in being slow to discard.

Synthetic industries like to fight with numbers: tensile strength, stretch percentage, waterproof ratings. Yet many new biomaterials fail to match even standard leather in these dimensions precisely because leather performs through complex, multi‑scale interactions, not single‑parameter tricks. The real test is not just how a material performs in a lab machine, but how it functions over time next to the skin.

Plant‑based biopolymers, too, have a long history—from cellophane and cellulosic fibres to modern materials derived from coconut fibres, sugarcane, algae and castor beans. The logic of moving from fossil‑fuel chemistry to biologically derived materials is sound. But honesty and transparency are essential. Many “renewable” biopolymers are not renewable in behaviour: they are plastics made from plants, not materials designed to return safely to biological cycles. Coatings, mixed fibres and lack of infrastructure mean that recycling is rare, incineration dominant and biodegradation slow or constrained. If new materials are not long-lasting and hard to handle at end of life, that is a failure: it’s why I prefer leather hiking boots with dubbin to membrane protection.

This is a reminder for tanners. Traditional glove leather, for example, often contains far fewer process and finishing chemicals than many synthetic fabrics—and even many more modern leathers. Synthetics may battle to approximate leather’s tactile comfort and durability, but the industry must not undermine leather’s advantages with over‑complex chemistry. With simpler chemistry and more natural leathers, I am convinced we can reduce the number of hides going to waste, so even the chemical companies would gain.

The touch, breathability, moisture‑management, stable friction and durability that make leather excel in applications like golf gloves, baseball gloves and fencing gloves are all rooted in its biological compatibility with skin. Dermatology stresses that skin is a living interface: barrier, sensor and microbiological ecosystem. Garments that work *with* the skin, rather than against it, are increasingly important as designers seek to replace fossil‑fuel‑based synthetics and reduce additives that may disturb skin chemistry or migrate into the body. It is why merino base layers have become so popular.

So, the strategic direction for leather is clear. Leather of the future should, as far as possible, emulate traditional glove leather: low chemical loading, high durability and strong repairability. Manageable biodegradability at end of life reduces the burden on waste systems and aligns with the logic of slow consumption and product longevity. It also positions leather where it belongs: not as a defensive “byproduct”, but as one of the world’s most sophisticated natural biomaterials—an ally in the move away from fossil‑fuel‑based synthetics and toward genuinely regenerative, skin‑compatible materials.

mike@internationalleathermaker.com

You can find Dr Mike Redwood across social media at @michaelredwood.

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