Lab-grown leather revolutionises luxury fashion

This startup has created a leather material without harming any animals

Spotted: Although some brands have turned away from it in favour of plant-based alternatives, leather – a material that causes a range of negative environmental impacts – remains a staple material in luxury fashion. To tackle this problem, UK startup 3D Bio-Tissues (3DBT) has created a leather material made from lab-grown ‘tissue-engineered skin’.

Starting with only immortalised cells collected painlessly from an adult horse, the company successfully grew a skin or hide structure in a lab over six weeks, without the need for additional materials, such as plastics or cellulose. And because the leather material can be made without the cows, 3DBT is also helping to reduce the sizable environmental impact of the livestock industry.

When growing cells, whether for meat or leather, the inputs used to boost growth have a huge impact on the end product’s sustainability and affordability. 3DBT has developed its own cell culture media supplement, called City-mix, which is animal-free and does not use serum. This separates the startup’s animal-free leather from other lab-grown animal products that use expensive and controversial foetal bovine serum, which is harvested from the blood of unborn cows.

Although the lab-grown skin can be tanned using standard techniques, traditional tanning is an environmentally harmful part of the leather-making industry, meaning innovators are increasingly finding alternative approaches. Because 3DBT’s leather is ‘rationally designed’, it is compatible with these more modern, environmentally friendly processes. The end products that the leather can be made into include handbags, footwear, clothing, furniture, and car interiors.

Written By: Matthew Hempstead and Matilda Cox