If you’re vegan or concerned about animal cruelty, suede is yet another product to avoid. Fortunately there are a number of excellent vegan alternatives.
What is Suede?
Suede is a type of leather that features a soft, napped finish. It’s typically made from the belly skins of lambs, calves, young goats, and deer.
Like leather, people sometimes assert that suede is an unwanted byproduct of animal agriculture. They’ll then argue that suede’s purchase does not contribute to exploitation and to slaughter. In reality, animal pelts represent a significant portion of the value paid for a carcass. And since suede requires the highest-grade animal hides, it’s certainly not made from unwanted byproducts.
Other types of leather are commonly treated with chemical sealants, but suede does not receive this sort of processing. As a result, suede is remarkably prone to stains and water damage. This has opened the door to vegan competitors that look and feel like suede, but offer vastly greater durability.
What Products Feature Suede?
Suede shows up in all sorts of apparel items. Keep an eye out for it in:
You need to stay vigilant, since suede can also appear in hard-to-notice places like the label on jeans or in the lining of shoes.
Vegan Suede Alternatives
With its rough yet soft surface, suede is a much more difficult material to veganize than regular leather. In the 1970s, a Japanese material science company called Toray pioneered a superb vegan suede product. Trademarked as Ultrasuede, its manufacturing process involves some truly impressive technology. Ultrasuede appears in numerous high-end fashion products. Just look for it on the label.
More recently, thanks to textile industry breakthroughs, new competitors have popped up. These products, based on various polyester microfibers, are generically known as microsuede. Like Ultrasuede, most microsuede products are both durable and water resistant. As a result of its softness and wear-resistance, microsuede is becoming an increasingly popular material for chairs and sofas.
Other terms that may appear on the label of vegan suede products are “faux suede,” and “man-made.” And obviously, and product simply labeled as vegan is a safe choice.
