Why luxury brands rely on bags made of everything from apples to cacti

Would you pay £350 for a bag made from scrap leather salvaged from a factory?

The House of American couture Coach is betting on a new concept to attract the next generation of luxury consumers. This week she launched Coachtopia, a sub-brand that focuses on circular craftsmanship and offers a variety of leather bags originally intended for landfill.

Twenty years ago, the most desirable “it bags” were made from rare and exotic animal skins like a Hermès Birkin crocodile, which fetched six-figure sums. Fast forward to 2023 and there has been a dramatic paradigm shift with a plethora of alternatives to leather and a trend towards recycling and upcycling existing animal leather. Prices have also fallen, with the sweet spot hovering around the £200 mark.

Telfar's vegan shopping bag dubbed the 'Bushwick Birkin', thanks to its popularity in New York, launched the orient. Although they are still expensive, they are not exorbitant. These "it-bags" are less about flaunting how much money you have and more about humbly bragging than IYKYK.

Last week, Ganni launched a handcrafted bag. from waste from orange and cactus farms, and Hermès experimented with mushroom leather. "Every time you eat an apple, you're basically eating a purse," Stella McCartney joked after showcasing her latest collection in March, which included bags made from waste apples (pictured below) grown at originally for juice and jam in northern Italy. .

Volkan Yilmaz, a leather expert who deconstructs luxury leather goods to access their quality on his viral TikTok channel as Tanner Leatherstein, says the idea of Animals like cows, goats, pigs and sheep raised solely for their leather is a regularly misquoted fact. “It's a by-product of the meat industry. It is one of the first examples of the recycling economy in history. As a meat eater, it's more responsible on my part to use leather.

However, there's no denying that the animal leather industry is notoriously wasteful. According to technical leather supplier ELeather, up to 75% of all leather hides go to waste. A study by the Leather and Hide Council of America found that in 2019, in the United States alone, more than 5 million hides went to landfill. lead the rebellion against the creation of even more animal leather. According to a McKinsey study, nine out of 10 Gen Z consumers believe companies have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues, while 54% are willing to spend an additional 10% on sustainable products, a in stark contrast to baby boomers, only 23% of whom were ready to.

Joon Silverstein, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing, Creative and Sustainability at Coach , says that according to the company's research, older generations and more established luxury consumers tend to view recycled leather pieces as low quality. "Gen Z has a different mindset: they see it as a moral and ethical [problem]," says Silverstein. "data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement" class="dcr-173mewl">