FUTURE OF VEGAN FASHION
Veganism is much more than altering your food intake and diet. It’s about protecting animals. Any vegan will tell you it’s a lifestyle that impacts your daily decisions. If you’re committed to the vegan lifestyle, it means that you also don’t buy clothing made from materials that exploit animals. Traditionally, in order to ensure that your clothing was vegan, you would have to check the tags for the presence of animal products and avoid materials like leather, fur, silk, feathers, wool, cashmere, shearling and various others.
With the increased popularity of veganism, with stars like Beyonce and Jay Z promoting their 22-day vegan challenge, now more than ever before, vegan clothing has become easily accessible and is labeled as such. Most major brands offer animal-free leather these days, from affordable options from stores such as Top Shop and Zara to high-end designers such as Stella McCartney and Bebe.
Designers are promoting awareness about animal cruelty and are creating an environment where animals need not be sacrificed for the sake of fashion. The website of Stella McCartney, for example, proudly displays that it is a “vegetarian brand,” that never uses “leather, skin, fur or feathers” and goes on to state that “[b]y taking this stance we are proving it is possible to create beautiful, luxurious products that are better for everyone – animals, people, and the environment.”
Many celebrities are also coming out with their own vegan fashion lines. Pro tennis star Serena Williams released a new line of 100% vegan athleisure clothing called Serena. According to Williams, her clothing line is “for all the ladies out there being awesome.” Jessica Alba founded The Honest Company to create effective and eco-friendly baby products. Uncertainty about the products used to manufacture clothing advertised as “vegan” led Rooney Mara to develop her own line of vegan clothing and accessories. Mara stated that “[i]n fast fashion, you can find faux leather boots that are really cheap, but while it’s cruelty-free in the animal sense, I didn’t necessarily know where those things were made, or if they were cruel toward humans.”
But what if there was a way to produce a leather substitute that looks and feels the same as the real thing without harming any animals? The New Jersey startup Modern Meadow has figured out a way to do just that – the company is creating “bio-leather” materials from a process entirely free of animals. The company predicts a future “where animal products are animal-free.” Reliant on genetic engineering, the bio-leather is made not from animals, “but from lab-grown collagen that’s assembled into flexible, adaptable forms of a new, leather-esque material that has the same properties as animal skins, but much less of the footprint.”
Modern Meadow first showcased its creative materials technology at MoMA last year in an exhibition called “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” The company designed a T-shirt created with its liquid bio-fabricated leather, called Zoa, to convey the product’s possibilities in design and manufacturing. After the show, MoMA acquired the shirt into its permanent collection. While it’s not clear yet which designers will have access to Modern Meadow’s bio-fabricated leather –what is clear is that this may not just be the future of vegan clothing, but all fashion.
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