What do you think most clothes were made out of before polyester? Most people wore cotton, linen, or wool clothes. The first two are from plants, the last one doesn't kill the animal. Hemp was also a major source of textile. Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?
Wool is more of a byproduct of the lamb meat industry these days, so wool and meat are inextricably entangled. I'm a sheep farmer, last couple years we threw the wool away due to lack of demand. Nobody is raising sheep just for wool.
However this is a problem with our distorted markets and not with the sheep industry, this valuable fiber is being dumped or burned while we pump out synthetic crap. It costs us more to remove it from the sheep to keep them from overheating, than we can sell it for.
I can't wear wool. It physically hurts and causes a rash. I want to like wool. I want to wear wool. I can appreciate that wool is good. But even cashmere I'd like sandpaper.
I think we all know what the solution is. We need to genetically engineer a sheep that is 15 times as big with wool 200 times softer the reproduces by laying eggs, and make it so that it produces mostly drone sheep that are able to care for it without human intervention, grooming it attentively and instinctually building large hives out of the coarse wool we currently call wool, so that all we have to do is harvest the total wool to have cuddly soft garments in cute colors.
Is it a lanolin allergy, and if so have you tried alpaca? Its as soft as cashmere (in superfine grade and above), but shouldn't make people with wool allergies itchy. It doesn't have the hive mind qualities you seem to be looking for, but it might help with the itchiness.
This is true and also not true. We've thrown away cow hides and sheep skins/wool for lack of demand, but I also know the wool industry and they're not exactly chomping at the bit to get their hands on the garbage wool slaughterhouses (or in our case small/medium farms) produce. There are producers who raised sheep just for high quality wool whose meat you wouldn't really want to eat..
Yes valid point, our wool is not ideal being farm flock wool, medium fibers. But for years we still sheared/skirted/bagged and tried to deliver at least a saleable product, it was disappointing to see it go to zero value. I would love to see it at least made into insulation batts or something.
Most of that high end Merino wool comes from places like NZ where they can graze year round, here the hay and chaff always mess the wool up a little and most have said running a true fiber flock is not economical. In Canada at least fiber has always just been an adjunct to a productive meat flock.
I ran some Columbias for a couple years but let them go quick. Gorgeous wool but terribly behaved critters and the lambing percentage and flavour were very poor compared to our Dorset cross main flock.
Nevermind how downright bad leather is for most clothing applications. It's high maintenance, stiff, non-breathing, non-padding and cannot be repaired easily. There's a reason it was only used for specific parts of clothing in specific situations once we had figured out stuff like cotton or wool.
And most people wore clothes that came from plants, like cotton and linen. Leather and fur were not for commoners, and are not sustainable compared to plants.
I don’t eat meat but do wear leather. I figure enough people will eat the beef anyways. I also try to buy my leather secondhand and take good care of it. If you treat it right it’ll outlast you.
Gore-tex is much better than animal skin for being both wind and water-proof, and better for breathability as well (and being much lighter weight). While the materials are bad environmentally, animal skin is not an environmentally friendly material either.
I used to commute on bike every day, regardless of weather in rain or harsh northern winter conditions. Waxed fabric is an interesting idea, and I might try soy wax on my shoes come to think of it. However in the past I had tried to use a rain poncho while biking and found that the flappiness rendered it completely useless in the rain.
Technically it's not gore-tex exactly, but I got a Columbia brand rain jacket that uses an equivalent technology. It is probably the best coat I've ever had for both rain and winter conditions (as long as I dress in layers), and even 6+ years later it is still entirely rainproof.
Just a heads up: Wax isn't wax, if it has the wrong properties you could get anything from sub-par results to a complete mess. Most commercial waxes are a paraffin and bees wax mixture, vegan discussions about honey aside if you're really up for it you can try and find an abandoned hive in the forest. Another, not exactly inexpensive but very good alternative is microcrystalline wax. Not that beeswax is inexpensive either, though.
I happen to live in an area where it rains a lot, but most of it isn't drenching, plain moleskin (that's cotton, not mole leather) is sufficient 99.9% of the time and the rest, well, I get drenched. I'm not hiking out in the wilderness so it's not exactly a survival issue. Though the only reason that moleskin is sufficient is because it's multi-layered in the areas that count, especially shoulders and upper back: The upper layer can get drenched while the lower layer stays dry enough. Also moleskin is so dense it needs flaps for comfort: The lower layer has slits for that reason, covered by the upper layer which is open at the bottom.
I believed the same thing, but most leather doesn't actually come from beef cows. There is some by-product of the meat industry but the bulk comes from cows raised specifically for their hide.
It's a difficult topic to find real stats on, results tend to be skewed one way or the other depending on the politics of the source. Most of my knowledge on the topic is from industry professionals and documentaries. Basically due to the harsh chemicals over half of all leather is produced in India, and conditions are not great for either party.
Basically, PETA released a lot of videos about the worst of factory farming and pretended it's common place to skin animals live. Also the oil industry is so heavily subsidised often it's cheaper to get synthetic materials.
No joke when this lab grown meat stuff finally hits its stride I'm going to start making calls to find out how much it would cost to grow me meet in a lab so I can eat myself.
Alternately, if my mum was an animal, and you had raised that animal from birth, gave it plenty of food, made sure it was kept safe from predators, parasites etc., I'd say it would think that you taking its skin and meat when it no longer needed them was a small price to pay. If aliens abducted me and made me that deal, and those things weren't already provided by the society I was surrounded by, I'd probably take it.
In fairness the suggested premise of you wearing human skin, not an animal skin, was funny but pretty stupid to start with.
And not what they had suggested has been done for the while history of humanity.
Leather is not a byproduct. Virtually no one is raising cows just to be nice. It's a business, and no business is going to waste resources on unprofitable "assets". This means the cows are raised specifically for their skin (in the case of the leather industry), and they are killed while still young. The same is true for both the animal flesh and dairy industries - older cows are less profitable.
So to accurately compare it to humans, imagine a bunch of babies and young children being confined in cramped, unsanitary conditions, regularly getting abused, and then being slaughtered long before they ever had any opportunity to do anything with their lives - having only ever known suffering and abuse.
Human skin is really only good for parchment and whatnot. It's too thin to be used for protection and it's lacking hair for warmth. Maybe you could turn her into some kind of drum? I'm not sure how much tension human leather can take.
Anyway, again we were talking about things that are or are not normal. Human artifacts have been created throughout history, but they're generally pretty rare. They're noteable. Shrunken heads, bone churches, skin books, a skin lamp shade. I think someone made some gloves once?
So, wearing my mum would not be normal. I'm gonna say you can't because all of your friends would disown you.
We've been doing it for about as long as we've been humans.
We have been doing a looot of things for a long time. Procreation without consent for example used to be a big staple in our development and yet we have ceased to find that acceptable, fortunately. Weather or not we have done something for a long time has no bearing on it beeing a good thing or not.
No bad takes here, I already mentioned before that I have three beautiful chickens that are well loved, fed and protected and give me eggs on a daily basis. We work pretty well together
So, the fact that something is popular does, in fact, make it normal. "Right" is a completely different discussion from popularity, that's correct.
Anyway, I generally agree we should minimize suffering as much as we can, but certain materials are irreplaceable for now. Leather has a combination of properties we haven't been able to match with plant or synthetic materials. There are fake leathers, yes, but they don't have the durability or flame resistance of real leather.
As for killing animals, I try to avoid it if it's not necessary, and try to do it as quickly as possible otherwise.
It's supremely bad as a product, the origin doesn't actually matter?
Smells, stiff, needs constant care, (comparatively) complex to repair, it just has virtually no upsides. It doesn't even last long unless you're comparing really high-quality leather to really low-quality cotton or something like that.
I own a leather motorcycle jacket I've abused for 20+ years that is none of those things, and it wasn't particularly expensive. I've repaired some loose stitches and rub some leather balm into it twice a year.
Yes: garbage quality leather is crap, and most of the "fast fashion" items on the market use trash leather. But decent quality leather will last for decades if you put a minimal amount of care into it. It's relatively easy to maintain and repair too.
The cattle industry is horrid. Boycotting or avoiding leather goods is not the lever that will harm the industry. Using leather goods means less waste from the meat industry. Leather items are good
If you disagreed with killing animals for meat to begin with, you'd find this a very bizarre statement. It's like saying we should use human teeth as a building material because it reduces waste from police violence.
I'm looking for change in our systems, but I recognize that the system is far bigger than me or you. I'm not going to lose sleep living in the only system I have access to. But in the meantime, I will bother politicians hoping to change the system that way.
I don't think beating your wife should be legal, and I will bother politicians to chance the law. But while I'm waiting for that, of course I will continue to beat my wife. It's the way things are.
How so? The system of patriarchy is beyond any one individual to solve. Yet I'm damn certain you believe every man should still do their best not to contribute. Why should the system of animal exploitation (and environmental destruction, while we're at it) be any different?
Is it because one of these requires actual work on your side? You are the one measuring the same thing by two different standards.
I'm not vegan, nor am I opposed to leather goods, but this doesn't make sense. You're assuming that leather is strictly a byproduct of the meat industry and given for free to leather suppliers. In reality, they sell the hides. In effect, leather subsidizes meat products by providing the meat industry with extra revenue.
Sure, they sell the hides to the leather industry, but that's just kind of convenient for them to do. If they couldn't sell the hides, they'd still be selling the meat. But the cattle industry could not get by on selling the hides without the meat.
Do you have experience with those? Especially the breathability to waters resistance ratio is much worse in all plant-based leathers I have tried. Would love to find a good alternative!
I've relied heavily on gore-tex style rain-proof outerwear for being outdoors in bad weather. Their breathability and water-resistance is miles ahead of dead animal skins.
First off, gore-tex is shit. But, yes, leather is nearly as non-breathable as a plastic bag that's why the traditional use of it is for things like elbow and knee patches, extreme heat protection, such things. Boots, of course. The solution is as always proper layering, not exactly a modern invention: You wear something breathable for warmth, and something non-breathable that you can take off, and has breathing flaps (rain doesn't fall from below), for water protection.
yea if you are satisfied having like a pair of shoes or two at most I think it would be fine. But if you want to renew your wardrobe completely every year, then the problem is elsewhere.
That's not the same at all. PLA-printed 3D prints don't take 1000s of years to break down, but they're very clearly not something you add to the composter.
It is though? Sure, you can't just throw it on a compost pile and wait a few weeks for it to rot away. That's why leather is processed (tanned) in the first place, otherwise it would be a pretty useless material.
But it will biodegrade. In a few years instead of thousands of years like plastics.
It depends on the process. Some processes literally make leather non-biodegradable. I'm not saying that faux leather is any better I'm just saying it's more complicated than people realise. The leather industry could certainly use some improvement.
