Green Options » leather

Rock Angelina Jolie’s Leather Look, Minus the Guilt - Part III

Katherine DalPra — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:33:42 +0000

If you’ve been following this series, not only have you learned about how to make Angelina’s top choice in fabric much greener, you also picked up on what to do to avoid looking gaudy or trashy in a sleek leather skirt or pair of leather pants. But what if you just don’t think you can pull off that much leather the way Angelina can?

Good news! Angelina has an answer to that one too. In this photo, you’ll notice that Angelina is devoid of any leather, but she is utilizing one style trick that can easily be transferred to the leather look. This is her at the Academy Awards, can you pinpoint her secret weapon?

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Rock Angelina Jolie’s Leather Look, Minus the Guilt - Part II

Katherine DalPra — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:22:16 +0000

PHOTO BY PR PHOTOS

This season, if you’re going to try Angelina’s signature leather look, only in an eco-conscious kind of way, like we covered in Part I, you have got to pair it with the right pieces. A boyish $5 tee, like the one Angelina is wearing from her more rebellious days, is NOT going to do it. If you want to crash and burn in leather, the fastest way to do it is by teaming it up with grungy accents that make the entire look just plain gaudy. Doing this ensures a drab, ultra masculine get-up that is anything but flattering. The key to pulling off an edgy leather-anchored ensemble is to balance it with feminine tones and cuts.

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Amazon Says Goodbye to World’s Largest Meat Exporter

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:33:29 +0000

Last month, I wrote about the world’s largest leather exporter leaving the Amazon. This week there is even bigger news. The world’s largest meat exporter is leaving.

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World’s Largest Leather Exporter Backs Out of Amazon

Zachary Shahan — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:57:11 +0000

Just a couple of weeks ago, soya traders agreed to extend a moratorium on buying soya linked to Amazon destruction. However, as discussed in January, 80% of Amazon deforestation is from cattle farming. With continued involvement of major international organizations and companies — Greenpeace, McDonald’s, Nike, Wal-Mart, and Carrefour — a giant leap in protection of the Amazon was made a few days ago.

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Nike Stops Use of Amazon Leather After Damning Greenpeace Report

Andrew Williams — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:53:53 +0000

Nike has stopped all imports of leather from the Amazon region of Brazil, after a Greenpeace report claimed that its shoes and trainers could be speeding up the destruction of the world’s largest rainforest and contributing to global warming.

The report, published last month, revealed how cattle hides from deforested areas were entering the supply chains of global brands including Nike, Clarks, Adidas and Reebok.

According to the NGO, deforestation for cattle ranching in Brazil alone is now the biggest driver of deforestation anywhere in the world.

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Leather Manufacturer ISA Tan Tec To Spend $8.7M On New Vietnam-Based Tannery

Janet Shan — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:19:08 +0000

Leather manufacturer ISA Tan Tec will spend $8.7 million on its new, Vietnam-based tannery aimed at producing leather using fewer resources than industry standards. The German/Chinese company was founded by CEO Thomas Schneider, who said that the demand from its clients for ecologically friendly leather is increasing rapidly. The Ho Chi Minh City location, set to open in mid-2009, will have 280 employees churning out two million square meters of leather a year, supplying companies including Timberland, Rockport, New Balance, Simple and Hush Puppies.

The Vietnam facility will employ many of the same resource-saving and energy-cutting procedures in place at its tannery in Guangzhou, China. At that location, in a span of 18 months, the company reduced electricity used for retanning by 76 percent and reduced heavy oil use by 28 percent.

The company’s overall process for making its Low Impact To the Environment, or LITE, leather uses 30 percent less energy and 50 percent less water, and emits 35 percent less carbon dioxide, than industry standards derived from the British Leather Technology Center. The company’s LITE concept calls for continuous monitoring of the company’s energy and water use. The amount of water used is recorded daily and the company analyzes it for where they can make reductions.

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Life Goggles: Can Your Wear Leather Shoes, and Still be Green?

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:31:45 +0000

Editor’s note: Leather hasn’t come under quite the scrutiny of other animal products like fur, but our friends at Life Goggles ask a good question today: should an environmentalist wear the stuff? To answer the question, LG blogger Adam interviews Katleen Baum of georgette, a Belgian store that specializes in “animal friendly footwear.” This post was originally published on Thursday, May 8, 2008.

Katleen Baum and her twin sister Liesbet run georgette, an online and real world shop in Antwerp which specializes in animal friendly footwear. The website is a delight. Handily written in English, you navigate with a flea circus and clicking on a link can give you a nice surprise. Oh, and the shoes are great too. Katleen spoke to Life Goggles about reconciling veganism with wearing leather.

“Ever since we were kids, we were always fascinated with fashion and shoes. And also with animals. From the moment we realized that the animal we saw in the country, ended up on our dinner plates, we did not want to eat it anymore. So we became vegetarian and evolved to veganism. No biggie, right? But as time progresses, you start to question other things…

Every vegetarian or vegan, some day, will be confronted with the same dilemma: how to reconcile a strict vegetarian-vegan diet with wearing leather?

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