Leather designs championed at 2025 Only Natural Awards

While Real Leather. Stay Different. International Student Design Competition focuses exclusively on leather, Only Natural’s mission is to challenge designers to prioritise natural over synthetic materials to reduce waste, curb landfill and combat the environmental toll of fast fashion.

Prior to the winner announcements, Vanessa Brain from the Leather and Hide Council of America (LHCA), the event’s lead partner, emphasised that natural materials offer durability, quality and intrinsic beauty, which is central to building a more responsible, circular design future.

Winners

From beautiful shoes crafted from seaweed to a dining table crafted entirely from locally and responsibly harvested solid Macrocarpa, every winner presented a profound understanding of natural materials and the part they need to play in the building of a sustainable future. Two of the winners used leather as their chosen material.

Mor Elfassy won the Apparel category for her project Touch Wood, a womenswear collection blending tradition and innovation through classic tailoring and natural elements. Elfassy used wood, leather and wool in her design, as well as techniques such as carving and leather weave-knitting.

Bingbing Bai won the People’s Choice Fashion award with her accessory collection, Eternal Vitality. Bai’s collection showcased the dynamic nature of vegetable-tanned leather through the creation of modern lifestyle pieces. Using Tuscan vegetable-tanned leather, a byproduct of the European meat and dairy industry, and traditional handmade sewing techniques, Bai emphasised the material’s natural elements.

Last year’s overall fashion winner, Molly Wade, returned to the stage to inspire this year’s finalists. She spoke about her award-winning collection, which traced leather and wool back to their farms of origin, noting how the cuts of the hides inspire her design line. She urged designers to seek collaborations across industries to open new creative avenues.

The exhibition will run from September 17-20 at the Material Matters Fair at the same venue, Space House. The fair is a part of the London Design Festival.