Is vegan leather a leather fabric or is it a sparkling wine not Champagne?

The term ‘vegan leather’ is widely used in fashion and accessories but is contested on definitional grounds. This article, first published in August 2023, sets out the case for why plant-based materials like washable paper and cork are more accurately described by what they are — rather than by reference to the animal product they replace.

Since 2013, as a result of pressure from the dairy sector, EU regulations have stated that designations like milk, butter, cheese, cream and yogurt can only be used to market products derived from animal milk. The response of a number of plant milk companies in the EU was to create a word including ‘mylk’, ‘m*lk’ and ‘malk’.

Now with the increasing popularity of plant-based meats, those vegan products are under scrutiny in some jurisdictions for whether products which are manufactured from plants and not animals should be permitted to be described as ‘meat’. A prominent plant-based meat manufacturer Beyond Meat has the line ‘HOW WE MAKE MEAT FROM PLANTS’ and describes its products as ‘beyond’ burgers, sausages, beef, meatballs. Australian plant-based manufacturer Fable offers ‘braised beef’ cooked into stroganoff, rogan josh and chilli con carne.

Will the use of meat and dairy industry terms in conjunction with new plant-based products attract regulatory responses around the globe because they are not true descriptors of the products and could mislead consumers? In the context of fabrics, the question is already being answered. In Italy in October 2020 legislation came into force that forbids the use of the word ‘leather’ in any way to describe materials not derived from the remains of animals — including its use in conjunction with other terms such as eco-leather, vegan leather, faux leather and other synthetic fabrics.

James&Co takes the position that washable paper and cork are best described by what they are — plant-based, plastic-free, FSC-certified materials — rather than by comparison to leather. This is why James&Co product titles and descriptions use the material name directly rather than ‘vegan leather’ or ‘cork leather’.