Nature
PUBLISHED
In the Devil Wears Prada, Andrea Sachs thinks she’s all that when she walks into work wearing the Chanel boots, but a new pair of kicks are about to stomp all over her parade: enter, Tyrannosaurus rex leather. That’s the vision of a new partnership working to create what they say will be a more sustainable and cruelty-free alternative to leather in the luxury market, built from fossil T. rex collagen.
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The surprising approach to luxury fashion comes from VML, The Organoid Company, and Lab-Grown Leather Ltd., marking a first-of-its-kind partnership seeking ethical alternatives in the luxury materials industry. This might not be the first time you’ve heard of VML if you’re into modern inventions inspired by ancient animals, as they were also behind the project seeking to make mammoth-meat meatballs.
Now, their sights are set on creating a next-generation material that uses fossilized T. rex collagen as a blueprint for creating a material that’s structurally identical to leather. Creating it involves engineering cells using synthetic DNA (which will be The Organoid Company’s remit). These cells will then be integrated into Lab-Grown Leather’s Elemental-X™ product stream, which uses a scaffold-free approach that allows cells to merge how they please.
“Engineered using Lab-Grown Leather Ltd.’s advanced tissue engineering platform, T-Rex leather is a cell-grown performance material that goes beyond imitation—offering natural durability, repairability, and the tactility expected in high-end leather goods,” VML says. “As the first-ever example of leather developed from a prehistoric species, T-Rex leather represents not just a sustainable alternative but a pioneering step in exploring how ancient biology can inspire sustainable, high-performance materials in the future.”
Traditional leather (and by that, we mean the kind that comes from animals that aren’t extinct) is most commonly sourced from cattle, an industry that the WWF states is responsible for 80 percent of deforestation in the Amazon, contributing to biodiversity loss, wildfires, and soil erosion. Vegan alternatives have become popular in light of the ethics of leather, but they’re often made of fossil fuel-derived plastics that don’t break down, and may actually be worse than leather when it comes to longevity and recycling potential.
It seems we could do worse than to start looking for some alternatives as a species that wants to look fabulous as we march into the climate crisis (but there is hope!). Did we have T. rex leather on our 2025 bingo card? No. Are we exhilarated by the possibility of T. rex leather thigh-highs (ideally worn by Pedro Pascal)? Absolutely.
