Recycled Leather

Structural Skin

Structural Skin is a self-produced material made out of leftovers and offcuts from the leather industry.

This project does not start from an interest in the advantages of a material but from its disadvantages. Leather is a beautiful material but very inefficient in terms of its manufacturing process due to its natural origins. No matter which tanning process a hide went through, the quality of a piece of leather depends directly on the part of the animal that comes from - the higher the movement the lower the quality; some experts indicate that just the 13% of a hide is top quality and up to the 43% is considered good quality. This fact means that companies involved in the production of leather goods produce a large amount of discarded materials, leftovers and offcuts.

After extensive material investigations, Jorge Penadés devised a new production method that transforms the apparently worthless waste from leather factories into an innovative material that is made 100% from an animal source. Any resin or chemical component has been used along the production, carefully considering the environmental impact of the project.

The result is Structural Skin, a new material that celebrates the inherent qualities of given skins while defining a new role for leather that had never been previously considered.

Text submitted by the maker

Ingredient list

Photo credits

OFICINA PENADÉS