| Résumé : |
In the past, ILM has written about the latest alternative materials that were beginning to circulate with brands and manufacturers (Flowers, 2018). A myriad of new materials has flooded onto the market and early data suggests that, instead of them disrupting the leather market, they have in fact started impacting the 3.1 trillion sq m synthetic material market. In trying to copy leather, the leather alternative companies find that their consumers seem to identify with their materials more as synthetic materials, rather than genuine leather alternatives.
Litre the altemative-to-meat market, the alternative materials just simply cannot seem to impress the final consumer and, as a result, their performance are stinging investors who cannot seem to draw out a dividend of these start-up companies due to falling share values and poor cash flows.
The materials can be broadly categorised as follows :
- Reconstituted leather composites
- Materials that are woven, knitted or composited (with a coating, as the coating or without a coating)
- Grown sheets (or grown and re-composited).
The history of these materials goes back to the middle of the last century when materials were cast, calendared (formed between two rollers) or coated onto a textile underlay. The early materials were based on polyvinyl chloride and were usually coated onto a woven textile backing (for strength). Early materials were not breathable and were replaced in some instances with poromeric materials (materials that had deliberate pores impregnated into the structure).
The use of leather fibre wastes was also inevitably going to see beneficiation into fabricated sheets that were bonded together to resemble genuine leathers. Coated, laminated and heavily finished leathers also meant that tanners could move low-grade materials through their factory. Foils, laminates and corrected grain finishes produced a range of synthetic-looking materials that blurred what the consumer could discern as leather or not. |
Aller sur edunet
Accueil
Alternative materials to leather update 2022 in INTERNATIONAL LEATHER MAKER (ILM), N° 55 (09-10/2022)
