Monterey Bay Aquarium
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year

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Kiana Khansmith

if i look back, i am lost
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
TVSTRANGERTHINGS

#extradirty
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Three Goblin Art
almost home

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
styofa doing anything
Sweet Seals For You, Always
YOU ARE THE REASON
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Misplaced Lens Cap

tannertan36

roma★
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@illegalengineer
Dark desert highway. Photo credit Peter Thomas.
mount Rainier from mountains (past time)... | Pavel Stephanovich
i’m very passionate about isolation
MAY YOU NEVER LOSE YOUR HYPERFIXATION
Love to see other artists' works under this trend ❤️
oh to be here
Source: pinterest.com/Robin Anderson
ℍ𝐚𝓵l נ𝐀 𝔳คĻǤẸ
big fan of upcycling in general but one thing I don’t think a lot of the leather repurposing ppl starting up these days realize is that modern day leather goods sold in stores (belts, dog collars, wallets, what have you) are made of a bunch of little remnant scraps of leather compressed under high pressure with a whole bunch of glue (think particle board). that’s why a leather belt from target falls apart so fast despite being allegedly “real leather.” so it’s not gonna last regardless and it’s chemically treated garbage all the same
Working with fashion industry data has made me insane, so... Rough breakdown of the often deliberately misleading/marketing-guff terms:
Leather - Ostensibly something containing tanned animal hide but in practice also applies to faux and pleathers.
Bonded Leather - What OP is talking about specifically. Like with pleathers and plant based leathers, this is primarily made of polymer glue, with scrap leather fibers used as 'structural filler' in the same way gravel is used to make concrete or grasses are used to make mud bricks. The fill material basically just exists to give the plastic something to stick to for strength. This is what plant based leathers are actually claiming to be "more environmentally friendly/ethical" than and are usually correct! Otherwise, frequently by omission, they're doing a spot of greenwashing.
Plant Leather - Replace the animal bits with plant bits. May or may not still undergo chemical treatments to "look like" high-grade leather (this is worse, see below), but it's still ultimately bonded.
Pleather - Deliberately sounds a bit like it's plant leather doesn't it? This is often just plastics held together with plastics.
Real Leather - Technically made "from" actual tanned animal hide, but still encompasses bonded.
Genuine leather - Exact meaning depends on how old the leather is, long ago it was a mark of quality but since it has no set meaning was adopted by the cheapest possible cuts of leather and become synonymous with that. Now also technically includes bonded sorry.
100% Leather - Not bonded! May still be low-grade 'genuine leather'. Any % less than 100% means its bonded.
[X]% recycled leather - not 100%? Greenwashing bonded, the polymer glue is still new. Probably still better than "new" bonded? The state of recycling is another can of worms.
Bycast Leather - Basically bonded. Plastic.
Reclaimed Leather - Basically bonded. Plastic.
Reconstituted Leather - Literally just bonded. Plastic.
Patent leather - usually low-grade leather covered in polymers with artificial dying or high-intensity chemical+heat treatments to give it the "skin" appearance of high-grade leather - this process is usually called Corrected Grain. Plastic. So much.
Full-grain leather - actual high grade cuts of leather. No artifical coatings or dyes. Frequently more expensive than god, whether used or new. Very resource intensive. You can only get so much of this out of each entire adult cow and even then not even every adult cow, that's years of resources and why the other 80% of the animal's skin is used in all the other categories to make it worthwhile (as well as the rest of the body going towards meat etc. typically).
Top-grain leather - similar to full-grain, actually leather, but slightly less fancy often coated in polymer for a cleaner look and with Corrected Grain treatments... Less plastic than bonded, still a lot of plastic.
Basically all of these are chasing the percieved prestige of full-grain leather with almost never actually achieving the characteristics of full-grain leather (durability, breathability etc.). That pursuit is absolutely sodden with polluting chemicals, and dipped in plastic.
At least in the EU some of this is required to be specified on product labeling thanks to some relatively recent legislation (for all clothing compositions, not just leather), and in some countries also the origin of that leather. Often international brands will include it elsewhere anyway.
In short, unless you're paying out of your arse (...not that price is even an indicator by itself) you're probably buying something which is no less plastic than elastine or polyester blended fibers (don't get me started). It's still an improvement over pure-plastic pleather garbage, but acting like it's Actually Really Environmentally Friendly is a bit disingenuous.
I know leather is seen as Cool As Fuck but honestly most of this hardly seems worth it yknow?
this is honestly SUPER useful but I do have something to add in terms of leather being “worth it” or environmentally friendly!
One thing people aren’t familiar with is “veg tan” vs “chrome tan.” chrome tan is the majority of leather you’ll find out there, which uses chromium salts, which creates horrendous toxic runoff. it’s used bc, of course, it’s cheaper. veg tan uses natural tannins derived from bark, which is fully biodegradable all the way through. Industries have normalized cutting corners and deceiving consumers through greenwashing and misleading branding, but genuine veg tan leather is legitimately eco friendly and, while certainly more expensive than plastic, not always priced at super high grade fashion prices!