Designer Femke de Vries replaces plastic with leather in the iconic ‘plastic bag’
While reading the blog NextNature, I was miffed to see that designer Femke de Vries made a design statement by creating a bag made of leather that appears to be the typical plastic bag. A quote from the statement on the site reads: “The most anonymous, brand less, recognizable ‘throw away’ bags made in leather (a durable material) to re-value the product and the space for personal values it offers.”
On NextNature, the bag is outwardly applauded:
Fakeness is traditionally associated with inferiority; cheap Rolexes that break in two weeks, plastic Christmas trees, leaking silicone breasts, imitation caviar… However, in a society in which everything is a copy of a copy, the ‘fake’ seems to gain a certain authenticity.
Can you imagine anything more classy and luxurious than these anonymous, brand less, recognizable ‘throw away’ bags re-created in durable, high quality leather by Femke de Vries? Better than the real thing!
Is it really better? Traditionally the plastic bag has been replaced by bags made of sustainable materials, recognizing the damaging effects of continuing to produce plastic materials. But is leather any better for the environment? Of course the links between animal agriculture and global warming are clear here - the cattle raised to create leather and sustain the leather industry are contributing to greenhouse gases, using of water and land, etc. But the leather industry itself, specifically its tanning processes, also lead to detriment of the environment.
While Femke de Vries may have been making an aesthetic, artistic statement about creating something enduring out of an object which has always been associated with anonymous disposability, to me her message is controversial in the face of the environmental implications. I don’t feel that artists (or anyone) in this day and age can afford to be blind to the wider consequences of their actions. While vegans and many vegetarians see leather transparently as the skin of now dead animals (and part of a larger, environmentally devastating system), many perceive leather as a “classy and luxurious” (as seen in the quote from NextNature) fashion-forward, trendy material. The work of designers like de Vries perpetuates the valuing of leather in this way.
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