Amsterdam company creates new vegan trainers from ‘wine leather’

Dutch shoe company, Mercer Amsterdam, produced the trainers in collaboration with Vegea, an Italian company producing leather from the leftover waste of wine production – in particular, the grape seeds and fibres – which first launched in Milan in 2017.

The new trainers are named W3RD Wine Pack and will retail for around €250. They will be launched as part of Mercer Amsterdam’s Spring / Summer 2021 collection, in December this year.

As well as the wine leather, the trainers include some mesh made from leftover PET bottles and the sole is made from algae.

‘Wine leather is soft, smooth, stable, 100% sustainable and can be recycled. It almost feels like leather and can also be processed adequately,’ said a statement from the company.

‘Wine leather is 100% vegan, no animals are harmed and no animal products are used during the production process.’

The W3RD Wine Pack currently comes in a range of four colours.

‘This is the first – and only product – in this material for now, but we are planning to expand this range,’ founder Pim Mercer told Decanter.com.

Speaking to Decanter.com in 2017, the founder of Vegea explained its sustainability credentials, stating that ‘of the 26 billion litres of wine produced annually, [it provides] an estimated seven billion kilos of grape marc, from which he could potentially produce three billion square metres of wine leather.’

Mercer Amsterdam also uses other sustainable materials across its range of trainers, including pineapple leather.

See also:

 What makes a wine vegan? Ask Decanter

Wine leather: What you could be wearing next season

Paper wine bottle launched: What is it like?