Hey guys, welcome to part two of of my fibres and fabric series.
If you haven't seen part one I recommend checking
that out first because I will be expanding on some of that information.
This video is all about animal materials,
vegan synthetics and what the different options are.
Now I know that this can be a dilemma. It's a dilemma for me
because on one hand there are terrible animal cruelty issues
but on the other, a lot of the vegan alternatives
can be pretty damaging to the environment.
Now this video is not about telling you what to do
I really believe it's up to each person
to make the decisions that you're most comfortable with.
But it is important to make informed decisions,
so I really encourage you to research both sides of these issues.
and I'm going to try my best to give you different options.
So first let's talk about leather.
I'm sure you know that it comes from the skin of animals
mostly cows and it's the primary material for shoes and bags.
It's pretty much everywhere.
Now there is horrific animal abuse in the production
of leather. I'm not going to show any images
or really get into it but if you don't know much about it
please, please do some research. There's lots of information online
and exposés into the leather industry.
It is stomach churning and heart breaking
and truly horrific, the way that animals are treated
and abused and slaughtered.
And then the leather has to become a material
and this involves a lot of toxic chemicals
Because leather is skin, it decomposes and breaks down
and in order to prevent that, it has to be treated and tanned.
The most common type of tanning is 'chrome tanning'.
It uses chromium salts, which are not only toxic
and carcinogenic to the workers but pollute the water
and land around tanneries and can effect entire communities.
Now there are less toxic ways to tan leather, such as vegetable tanning
but chrome tanning makes up the majority of leather,
about 75 to 80%. And according to the environmental protection agency,
chrome tanning is used in about 90%
of US leather production.
Now the synthetic alternatives can unfortunately also be very polluting.
Polyvinyl chloride or PVC is the worst.
It's made from petroleum and uses large amounts of energy to produce.
PVC bags and shoes contain toxic ingredients like phthalates
and are often treated with lead and flame retardants.
It also doesn't biodegrade and can't be recycled.
A common vegan leather is polyurethane
and it's definitely less toxic than PVC
but it's also made from petrochemicals,
is energy intensive and polluting to make and doesn't biodegrade.
Some brands will develop their own synthetic leathers
but because theses are proprietary, they can unfortunately be difficult to get more information on
and find out how they were made and what's in them.
You might also see recycled PET which is great is some aspects.
They take plastic bottles and break them down, turning them into fabrics.
But this also uses a lot of energy and creates toxic pollution.
So what can you do?
I think buying either leather or synthetic leather second hand is definitely the most sustainable
I've had a few questions on my thoughts on buying animal materials second hand
and I think it's great.
You get the benefits of the material
without supporting the industry.
It requires no new resources or chemicals to make
and you're preventing something from going into the landfill.
Another good option is to buy recycled or upcycled leather products
for similar reasons.
There are natural material options.
You can find bags and shoes made out of cotton, hemp, rubber, cork and other materials.
Unfortunately they can be a little difficult to find
and are often in limited styles.
But this does seem to be improving and
there seems to be more natural options available.
If you are buying synthetic leather new
avoid PVC and look for a less harmful alternatives
or recycled synthetics.
Also I didn't want to go into these in depth
because they're not fully developed
or widely available but there are companies working on
more sustainable leather alternatives.
Things like leather grown from bacteria.
So hopefully someday soon there will be more options available.
Now for the sake of time I'm not going to talk about fur and faux fur
because it has pretty much the same issues as leather
and fake leather and most people tend to know quite a bit about fur production.
But what I did want to briefly discuss and something that's different between leather and fur
is normalising the wearing of it.
So leather is super common and seeing leather
or leather look products is really normal
but fur on the other hand
has kind of come and gone with trends.
So while there is no risk in normalising the wearing of leather,
buy purchasing second hand leather or synthetic leather
it is something to think about with fur.
Next I want to talk about down.
And with clothing this is mostly only found in winter coats.
Down is the fine feathers usually from ducks and geese
and it's fluffy and insulating.
It also has a lot of animal cruelty issues.
The most common and torturous of which
is that the birds can be plucked alive.
A lot of geese are also force fed for foie gras.
Fortunately though, buying new down is pretty easy to avoid
and there are some good options to keep you warm in the winter.
There are quite a few synthetic alternatives
but a lot of them do tend to be proprietary.
So just try to do your research and choose ones that have less of an environmental impact.
Again buying second hand is a great option. There also are coats made out of nautral materials
like cotton or hemp but these are less insulating.
Another option is recycled down.
And this uses down from older blankets, pillows and coats.
They clean it and fluff it up and turn it into new coats.
And this is a great way to get the benefits of natural down
without supporting the cruel practices and it reuses it.
Wool is another natural insulating material.
But it's also an animal fibre so let's talk about it now.
The majority of wool comes from sheep
but it can also come from alpacas, goats and other animals.
But I'm going to mainly be discussing sheep wool.
Again there are a lot of animal cruelty issues.
There's a practice with merino sheep called mulesing
where they cut chunks of their skin away.
Thankfully this is banned in a lot of countries
but it's still legal in Australia, which is one of the top suppliers of merino wool.
There's also something called sheep dipping,
where they use toxic pesticides to kill any insects or parasites that are on the sheep.
The sheep can also be shorn in a very rough and abusive way.
Now the common synthetic alternative to wool is acrylic.
And as you saw in part one, it's not a very good fibre
and is one of the more toxic and unsustainable synthetics.
Synthetic fleece is a common vegan substitute for wool sweaters
and it's unfortunately one of the worst offenders when it comes to shedding plastic microfibres
that pollute the oceans.
So what are your options?
You can probably guess what my first one is - shop second hand.
Wool is an extremely durable fibre and I've found some beautiful wool clothes
in thrift and vintage stores.
You can also look for brands that use recycled
or upcycled materials.
And I will talk about this in part three, which should hopefully
be out in two weeks.
You can find cotton alternatives to wool clothes
but with certain things like sweaters or athletic wear
you do lose some of the great properties that wool as a fibre has.
If you're going the synthetic route, try to choose less harmful synthetics
There are lots of options with athletic and performance wear
but unfortunately not so many in the yarn, sweaters category.
If you want the properties of wool,
look for certified organic wool and research the certifications.
Some of them will include criteria for the care and wellbeing of the animals.
Alpaca is also often considered to be a more sustainable wool.
And there are some companies that have good traceability
and codes of conduct for the care and treatment of their animals.
If you are a knitter who uses wool, I really encourage you
to look for and check out any small farms that might be in your area.
I've met some wonderful sheep and alpaca farmers
who truly love their animals and care for them really well.
They're also often really happy to show you around
and answer any questions that you might have.
It's not only much more sustainable to source materials in your area
but I think if you have the option, it's good to support small businesses like that.
Finally, this is a little off topic but I wanted to share it
because I think it's awesome
and it was really inspiring to me when I was working on
my final sustainability collection for my fashion design degree.
There is a UK company called Izzy Lane
and they actually rescue sheep from slaughter,
often because they are male, didn't get pregnant,
too small, have spots or imperfections in their wool.
And these sheep live the rest of their lives in their sanctuary.
And they're able to do this by creating and selling wool clothes from their sheep.
I personally think that's really amazing
and good to support.
And they're showing that wool can be farmed in a more ethical way.
Finally there's silk and this comes from silk worms.
Which aren't actually worms at all. They're caterpillars.
And the silk comes from their cocoon.
In the normal life cycle of a silk worm,
they create a cocoon, turn into a moth,
make a hole in the cocoon and crawl out.
Now this hole damages the silk fibres.
So what usually happens is the cocoons are thrown in boiling water,
killing the silk worms.
Therefore silk is not at all a cruelty free fabric.
Some of the main characteristics of silk
are the soft hand and nice drape.
And these can be found with synthetics like nylon, rayon, modal (which is very similar to rayon) and lyocell.
Of these options, lyocell also called tencel
is the most sustainable choice.
And can be made to have a similar softness and drape
but doesn't have the same natural sheen.
Shiny synthetics are usually nylon or polyester
which can be pretty damaging to the environment.
Again shopping second hand is a great option.
There also is something called peace silk
where they let the moth leave the cocoon before harvesting the fibres.
But I read an article recently about how peace silk
might not be as cruelty free or might be even crueler than regular silk.
Basically when the moths leave the cocoon they have been bred
so that they can't eat so they just mate,
lay a bunch of eggs and end up dying from starvation.
And since they're are so many eggs a lot of caterpillars hatch
and there often isn't enough food for all these catepillars
so a lot of them die of starvation too.
Now this was just one article that I read
and I definitely want to do more research into this
but, peace silk unfortunately might not be the cruelty free option that I hoped it was.
So I hope you found this interesting.
I really encourage you to do more research into these materials and issues
because I definitely can't cover everything in a ten minute video.
I will include some links below if you want to check those out
and I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
There are definitely a lot of factors to weigh in this particular area of ethical fashion
But I think it's important to try your best to make
mindful decisions that best align with your values
and to continue to learn.
Thank you so much for watching.
Please give this video a thumbs up
if you found it informative
and I will see you in the next one.