Our Materials
Our Materials
At HYER GOODS we pride ourselves on using the most sustainable materials-- the ones that already exist! That's why all of our bags, wallets, jackets and beanies are crafted from fashion industry leftovers.
Luxury Leftover Leathers
Abandoned by your favorite luxury brands, rescued by us. Think buttery pebbled leathers, Italian crocs -- the most luxurious leathers there are.
Why Upcycled?
Why Upcycled?
Every year, 6.3 million tons of textiles are wasted during the design and production process*.
Because leather is a natural product, full of defects, off grain, stretch/ growth/ injury marks, 12-15% can be wasted during the production and manufacturing process. For one single medium size tannery, for example, that could mean 20,000 square feet of deadstock leather every month. Our larger items are cut from deadstock materials and our smaller items are made out of cutting scraps.
Recycling textiles saves more greenhouse gas emissions than paper, plastic and glass recycling combined.*
By upcycling waste into new things, we eliminate the energy needed to create new materials, while simultaneously reducing the amount of waste being sent to landfill. This results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions.Every ten pounds of textile waste diverted from landfill has the same CO2-reducing benefit as planting a tree!
Why leather?
As long as people are eating meat, we believe it's more sustainable to use the by-products of meat consumption than to create a new material. Plus, leather is durable and ages well over time. If it ever winds up in a landfill, it is organic matter and will biodegrade in a reasonable amount of time. While there are some amazing innovations in man-made leather (vegan leather), most of what's currently commercially available on the market, while it may be vegan and animal-free, is actually a form of plastic. Even innovations like apple leather, pineapple leather and mushroom leather contain 30-50% plastic binders. In addition to containing plastic (made from non-renewable resources), vegan leathers do not wear well, and when they end up in a landfill the plastics will take hundreds if not thousands of years to degrade, releasing methane and leaching microplastics in the process.
Working with waste is not perfect, but it's better.
Because we use waste skins, we cannot control all of the processes that the skins go through, however all of our skins are tested for chrome VI after aging, ensuring the leather is safe to wear. We like using veg tanned skins when possible, which will be noted in the product specs of each product it applies to.
As much as 73% of material that goes into the clothing system is lost after final garment use.*
Low rates of reutilization of materials put enormous pressure on natural resources, create high levels of pollution and yield unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions. Our goal is to minimize waste at every step of a material's life, including when you're done with it. That's why we enable customers to re-sell their preloved handbags and wallets through our resale platform HYER UP. It's called Circular Fashion and it's the future.
*The Ellen MacArthur Foundation