{"id":244,"date":"2011-09-07T09:13:49","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T09:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=244"},"modified":"2013-05-11T08:25:50","modified_gmt":"2013-05-11T08:25:50","slug":"second-look-at-leather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/second-look-at-leather\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Look at Leather"},"content":{"rendered":"

By PePe Castro<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>By-products.\u00a0That, says Filipino shoe manufacturer and retailer giant Manels owner Manuel Siggaoat, are what they are.\u00a0He is talking about leather, of course.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis (industry) makes use of by-products that (if not used, will) just go to waste,\u201d he says.\u00a0That, by the way, is not an excuse \u2013 Siggaoat is, actually, being truthful.<\/p>\n

Leather is a material created through the tanning of hides and skins of animals, primarily cattlehide, uses raw materials that are by-products of the meat industry, with the meat having higher value than the skin.\u00a0Leather \u2013 like fur \u2013 is actually a sore point for many, err, (non-consumers of meat) animal lovers, largely because it necessitates the slaughter of a living being in order to produce it. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal rights activist group, among others, consider the use of \u201call leather items (from animal hides) is unnecessary and cruel in today’s society.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so the debate continues on the pros and cons of leather, and leather use.<\/p>\n

FASH ITEMS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manels, of course, has been a leading player in the local leathergoods market since 1964. Manels \u2013 a play at the names of owners Manuel and Nelia Siggaoat \u2013 started out as a small shoe store near the Philippine Women\u2019s University, where Nelia worked, soon proving to be lucrative so that the husband and wife tandem decided to leave their careers to focus on their new business. Nelia\u2019s artistic vision found a medium in the design and manufacture of these shoes and bags. Manuel, on the other hand, focused on building the business side.<\/p>\n

Over 40 years later, Manels has diversified \u2013 in 2004, Siggaoat\u2019s son, Mark Siggaoat, spearheaded the establishment of LapDance (lapdancebag.com), a company supplying laptop (and similar gadgets) casings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a niche market,\u201d the younger Siggaoat says, adding that, initially, \u201cit was a hard (market to break into) when we started.\u201d
Not, worth noting, because of anti-leather sentiments.<\/p>\n

The sales picked up, though, and have been up since 2006.<\/p>\n

Early in 2009, LapDance started selling products using ostrich leather.<\/p>\n

In an interview, the older Siggaoat notes how, in the case of ostriches in particular, \u201costriches are now grown locally (aside from getting imported) for their meat,\u201d he says. Interestingly, in many cases, only ostrich meat is harvested \u2013 in fact, in the Philippines, tanning ostrich skin is not practiced.<\/p>\n

There, therefore, is produced \u201cwaste\u201d \u2013 effectively turned into leather.<\/p>\n

LapDance currently usually comes out with eight to 10 new designs per season, the products costing from P1,800 to over P3,000 apiece.<\/p>\n

And, oh, the leather is but a component of the design \u2013 other materials used are fibers, among others, just as the company is also studying the use of faux (fake) leather to \u201cmake the products more marketable.\u201d<\/p>\n

GOING ALL-NATURAL<\/strong><\/p>\n

For those opposing the use of leather, it isn\u2019t just the slaughter of animals (a living thing) that ruffles their feathers, so to speak \u2013 it is also how the tanning process that the hide has to go through which, it is worth noting, can be harmful to the environment. Tanning, the process that makes the leather (which does not easily decompose) from the skins of animals (or rawhide, which decomposes easily) after permanently altering its protein structure, often makes use of such chemicals as: sodium sulfide, sodium hydroxide, sodium hydrosulfite, arsenic sulfide, calcium hydrosulfide, dimethyl amine, sodium sulphydrate, and, yes, tannin \u2013 all of them, aside from emitting toxic fumes, may (if\/when not properly disposed of) contaminating air and water.<\/p>\n

In theory, choosing not to use (not just buy) leather products should be easy \u2013 after all, the alternatives now abound. Among others, there are the artificial leather (fabric with leather finish, popularly used as upholstery), synthetic leather or pleather (this one, however, is also hotly discussed, since it is often made from plastic, another hot point for environmentalists), vegan leather (made from fibers that are animal-friendly \u2013 though even this uses some PVC, deemed harmful to the environment).<\/p>\n

A bigger issue is in the availability of the products \u2013 in the Philippines, for example, alternatives are not as widely available.<\/p>\n

REALISTIC APPROACH<\/strong><\/p>\n

Michael Bloch, editor of greenlivingtips.com, has a more realistic approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s a leather lover to do? Firstly, we need to look at our consumption \u2013 do we really need 10 pairs of leather shoes, five wallets or eight handbags? Every leather item you don’t buy mean less toxic waste entering into the environment and, perhaps, an animal not killed \u2013 you’ll save some cash as well,\u201d Bloch says.<\/p>\n

Yet another way to approach the issue is to \u201creduce our associated impact by asking companies where they source their leather \u2013 if it’s outside \u2018developed\u2019 countries, assume the worst,\u201d Bloch adds.<\/p>\n

For the moneyed, though, opting to buy only the green should always be considered \u2013 if not locally available, the order from overseas.
But for now, on leather, pleather, vegan leather, imitation leather, or\u2026 whatever? The choice remains yours \u2013 choose wisely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many call for the non-use of leather because it isn’t exactly green. An alternative perspective is forwarded, however – i.e. seeing leather as a by-product that will just go to waste if not used.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,16,12,13],"tags":[147,150,149,146,148],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beauty-and-fashion","category-product-showcase","category-spa-trade","category-business-builders","tag-faux-leather","tag-green-fashion","tag-lapdance","tag-leather","tag-manels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":250,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}