An 80% bio-based composition and a three-layer structure designed to be disassembled and recycled. This is Leap, a natural material that is proposed as a green alternative to the use of leather and will be launched on the market starting in the second half of 2022, specifically targeting the small leather goods sector. Leap is the result of research by Hannah Michaud, who during her studies in Sustainable Fashion at the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology came up with the idea of making a vegetable leather from food waste.
Michaud studied apple waste in cider making: the core, seeds and stems left over after pressing to make juice. And this became the basis for Leap: in fact, the heart of the material is made from a mixture of apple scraps free of plastics and petrochemicals. It is currently backed with Tencel and coated with a fossil fuel-based protection that makes the material waterproof, but the goal is to replace the coating with an entirely bio-based alternative by 2024.
