At the house of IKO&NOTT for some of our basketball models, including the entire collection Astréos , we use recycled leather.
For what ?
- To use a material that has already been used, in the form of a sofa or household furniture. The leather is cleaned, purified (with vegetable tanning) , and reused for our sneakers.
- The leather can also come from scraps of leather from major French luxury houses. These scraps are thrown away, instead we use them for our sneakers. This is why our sneakers are in limited quantities. We do not have any “dormant” leather stock.
- Today, it is the most recyclable material possible.
- Compared to materials such as grapes, apples or pineapples, recycled leather has no added plastic.
- Succeeding in using a material until the end of its life is more useful for us than creating a new material.
- Leather may be recycled, but it keeps the same properties: it is very resistant, water beads up on it, but does not enter (unless it's really a flood...) , it helps you not get too hot in your sneakers.
It is for all these reasons that we opted for recycled leather.
To be sure that our leather is not transformed, we only use leather from France and Portugal with the label GRS (Overall Recycling Standard) which allows trace the leather from end to end of the chain, and to ensure its characteristic recycled.
Why not use grape or apple or pineapple “leather”?
In indeed, he There are new materials based on vegetables and fruits. Today, so that these materials resist outdoor life (rain, metro, bike… ) you have to add plastic. And we refuse to still use plastic for our sneakers. Especially if it is created for our products.
We prefer to use a material that has already been used and which should end up in the trash. We are able to clean to use again so why not use this option.
Everything is not perfect, if one day grapes, apples or cucumbers can be used for sneakers without adding plastic, we can consider it.
Progress is moving forward a little more every day. We adapt to what we can find.
We hope you enjoyed reading these lines and that you learned a lot about recycled leather.
Melisande