Industry organisation Alliance France Cuir is using the results of tests by research institution FILK in a new campaign to highlight the properties of leather.
In 2021, FILK carried out tests to compare the performance of leather with that of a series of synthetic alternatives. It published its results in a paper called ‘Comparison of the Technical Performance of Leather and Trendy Alternatives’.
To date, no manufacturer of any of the ‘trendy alternatives’ has been able to publish follow-up test results to counter FILK’s findings, making them still current and coherent enough for use in campaigns such as Alliance France Cuir’s.
The French industry body said it had launched the “deliberately disruptive” campaign in time for the Christmas shopping season “to create a sensation and to spark passionate conversations”.
It said it had no intention of casting a negative light on any emerging material, but sought only to “re-establish some essential truths”. It sums these truths up by saying: “To choose leather is to commit to durability and to the circular economy.”
In the campaign, it displays alternative materials made, partly, from different raw materials and points out their shortcomings compared to leather.
For example, it says material made using fibres from fungi will be 160 times less tear-resistant than leather, and that material containing some fibres from cactus plants will have seven times less flex-resistance. Materials made using pineapple and apple as part of the fibre mix will have 2.5 times less tear resistance and four times less flex resistance than leather, respectively.
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