Boom-Time For Vegan Fashion

The vegan leather market worldwide will expand to nearly $90 billion by 2025, while the overall vegan fashion market will reach $837 billion by 2030. The numbers speak of the groundswell of interest in vegan fashion. Since the most on-trend vegan leathers and fabrics are plant-based, the increase in patronage of these items is also good news for India's farmers.

- Monica Chopra

What in the world is pineapple leather? Its existence means the vegan fashion revolution is here.

In early March, the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST) in Thiruvananthapuram announced that it had developed vegan leather from agricultural waste. The institute comes under the government of India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, a research and development agency.

NIIST has shown how, instead of killing animals for their skin, it is possible to turn agricultural waste such as mango and pineapple peels, cactus, vetiver grass, banana pseudo-stem, and paddy straw into bags, belts, wallets, sandals, and pouches. The cactus technology has already been commercialised and sold to a Mumbai-based entrepreneur.

World over, scientists and fashion companies are working towards developing even more state-of-the-art vegan leather, wool, and silk. In India alone, animal-friendly novel materials include Malai Eco's coconut leather, Kanpur Flower Cycling Pvt Ltd's temple flower leather, microbe-derived Bioleather, and FABORG'S WEGANOOL, vegan wool.