Demetra, the cruelty-free plant-based material developed in-house by the Italian house Gucci won 2022 PETA’s innovation prize.

By Ludmilla Intravaia

Mushroom, grape, pineapple, corn or apple… Alter-leathers, alternative to animal-based leather and petro-sourced materials, are beginning to be taken seriously by fashion, to design in a cruelty-free and more sustainable approach. Each year, the animal rights association PETA awards some of these initiatives with its vegan fashion prizes.  The winners of 2022 awards were unveiled on February 25 (more info in this Boudoir Numérique article).

Among them, an innovative material that Le Boudoir Numérique had not yet had the opportunity to tell you about, Demetra, received the PETA 2022 innovation prize. Unveiled on June 17, 2021 by Gucci, Demetra is a vegan plant-based material developed, internally, for two years, with the artisans and technicians of the Italian brand. According to an FAQ, published on the Gucci Equilibrium website, dedicated to the ethical commitments of the luxury house of the Kering group, it is a material from sustainable, renewable and biobased sources, containing up to 77% vegetal raw materials, namely viscose and wood pulp, from sustainably managed forests, as well as biosourced polyurethane, from renewable sources of wheat and corn from Europe.

Demetra is made in Tuscany, in the Gruppo Colonna factory, a group of Italian tanneries 51% owned by Gucci. According to the brand, the material is created with processes similar to those of animal leather tanning, for a resistant and flexible material. Demetra is intended to integrate Gucci collections for the manufacture of shoes, handbags, accessories and clothing, as an alternative to leather of animal origin. On the occasion of the announcement of Demetra, three models of sneakers, designed in this material, were launched: the Gucci Basket, the Gucci New Ace and the Gucci Rhyton. The brand nevertheless specifies in its FAQ that Demetra, “is another offering from Gucci and will not replace leather”.

The FAQ adds, moreover, to mark the difference between Demetra and other current innovative materials that “Gucci products with Demetra are available now”, the material being “incorporated into collections”. "It is not just used in a product prototype, which is the case for many of the new materials coming to market or at early stages", adds the brand, which indicates: "Unlike the majority of new materials being developed there are no impediments to scalability or limitations on volume, which often is a challenge for brands searching for scale and quantity.” In fact, Demetra is intended to be offered to the other brands of the parent company Kering, then to other players in the fashion industry, from the beginning of 2022, this material being able to be personalized with finishes specific to the identity of each brand. Kering is also part of the Mylo consortium, announced in October 2020 by the biofabrication company Bolt Threads, a consortium bringing together the brands Adidas, Lululemon and Stella McCartney around the innovative material Mylo, the mushroom unleather (more info in this Boudoir Numérique article).

*About the other vegan prizes awarded by PETA, read this Boudoir Numérique article here.

*Learn more about innovative vegan and cruelty-free fashion and beauty, by exploring the Boudoir Numérique special file there.

*Le Boudoir Numérique has started testing a pair of vegan and low-carbon sneakers from the French brand MoEa in grape, apple, cactus, corn and pineapple alter-leathers. Find the logbook here. Check out the unboxing video of the shoes (under the strict quality control of the cat Mr Spock) below.