- The world’s first T-Rex leather is revealed today (April 2) in Amsterdam in the form of a handbag
- The project is a collaboration between creative agency VML, The Organoid Company and Lab-Grown Leather Ltd.
- It follows last year’s announcement, which has sparked heated debate
The Jurassic Park movie is another step closer to becoming a reality – and it’s all thanks to lab-grown T-Rex leather from creative agency VML.
A year since it was announced, VML, The Organoid Company and Lab-Grown Leather Ltd have collaborated on an ambitious project that sees the world’s first production of dinosaur leather. The partnership must show the material’s potential and how it can contribute to sustainable fashion.
The first ever T-Rex leather product comes in the form of a luxury handbag designed by techwear brand Enfin Levé and will be on display at Amsterdam’s Art Zoo Museum today (April 2). It will also be displayed under a monster replica of a T-Rex skeleton acquired by the museum from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center to “symbolize a bridge between ancient biology and forward-looking luxury design,” VML says in its announcement.
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After the exhibition’s 6-week run, the handbag will then go up for auction and be sold to the highest bidder, but while VML has shared that this is a collector’s item, the company added that T-Rex leather will continue to be produced and will become commercially available to designers and brands.
CEO of The Organoid Company, Thomas Mitchell, is just one of the brains behind the world’s first dinosaur leather goods and shares: “This project demonstrates how genome and protein technology can create entirely new classes of biomaterials”. At the same time, Global Chief Creative Officer, Innovation & CCO EMEA at VML also had the following to say:
“The stark reality is that lab-grown leather has not yet convinced the luxury world. Why? Because it feels like an imitation. We knew we had to do something radically different. Not a replacement, but something completely new”.
It’s one of the craziest tech projects in recent years, and one that has us scratching our heads. What exactly is T-Rex leather and what do the experts say?
Caught out on a technicality
The concept of this lab-grown T-Rex leather has been the subject of much debate and controversy since it was unveiled last year. Essentially, it is produced by retrieving fossilized T-Rex collagen sequences and using processes such as computational biology and AI modeling.
According to VML, this allows researchers to “predict(ed) and reconstruct(ed) the remaining genetic information required to form a complete collagen blueprint,” and from there, the DNA is placed into a carrier cell line, which is then cultured using Lab-Grown Leather Ltd’s Advanced Tissue Engineering Platform.
Aimed at reducing deforestation and manufacturing pollution, it is quite revolutionary, but the debate over whether or not it can be classified as leather remains heavy. This is because the basis of leather is skin, and researchers have only found T-Rex collagen in bones, as Live Science reported at the time of last year’s announcement. The publication also noted that academics in the field called the process of making lab-grown T-Rex leather ‘misleading’ and ‘fantasy’.
We’ve reached out to VML for comment on the backlash, so we’ll update this story when we know more.
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