The APLF Awards Come of Age

Drink the champagne and read the book

Best Ecological Product

It is not often that you go to an awards ceremony and realise that you have to go out and buy a book (or buy it in electronic form from Amazon to read on your Kindle). Yet for those at the APLF Awards who were not aware why Hammann Lederfabrik of Germany were awarded the Best Ecological Product prize then going out and getting Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart is a must.

This book was first published in 2002 and basically argues that much of current product design has evolved out of what was correct in the time of the Industrial Revolution but is not appropriate for the 21st century and a world of 6 billion people and rapidly declining resources. It argues that we do not live in a consumer society at all, but a waste society as we throw so much away. Attempts at recycling can only be partly successful since they more often than not use materials for end uses that are far from perfect considering their content. So the cradle to cradle approach is based upon choosing materials with greater care and designing with the 'end of life' in mind. Nature and industry can move away from conflict and into harmony. Following this approach 'end of life' is not an issue as all materials will be used again appropriately in the same way that excess seeds from a tree fall onto the land and provide nutrient for it. "Durability is a design tyranny: a guilt protection" according to Michael Braungart in a lecture he gave in February. "The biomass of ants is 4 times that of humans and this is not a problem - except when they are in your apartment - as everything they do adds to the benefit of the planet" There are now a number of institutes and businesses working on materials which fit the cradle to cradle concept and the Government in the Netherlands has adopted it as a policy. So finding a tannery that has been considering this approach as opposed to just doing a non chromium tannage and implying that this is enough to be "green" was quite a surprise and hopefully the start of a major trend. Coming of Age This award was indicative of what might be termed a "coming of age" of the APLF Awards and followed through the other material prizes. The best technical material went to Incusa of Spain for their Sanotan leather made with titanium. It is hard for judges to assess products in the time available at the Fair, and the judges do not go into the minutiae of chromium versus aluminium, vegetable tanning or aldehydes. Yet it can be recognised that if it can be made to work commercially titanium is a good material from many points of view both within the tannery and from the point of view of the features and benefits it offers to the consumer.

Best New Materials Technology

Many papers have been written about titanium, first when it was originally suggested as a tannage in the early 20th century and again in the 1980s and 1990s when mostly it was discarded as being too hard to work with. With Sanotan Incusa have jumped the hurdle of commercialisation and made a versatile base tannage which can be adapted to most of their volume leathers. Bright colours are achievable since there is no wet blue colour to neutralise, salt water fastness is good, anti-allergic is given and the leather is already able to be made waterproof to 30 minutes. This is a very clever development, and one to be rewarded for its very clever development of this technology. Well worthy of the Best New Materials Technology award.

This was tough judging for the judges, who argued a lot over what was innovation and how to approach technology and ecology. Sometimes as with the Hammann and the Incusa awards the leather really stands out but for the best leather it is always a complex process. This year the winner for the Best New Leather was Marmara Deri San Ve Tic of Turkey, for their beautiful 3-dimensional lamb nappathat is an interesting hybrid of leather and textile making it a perfect example of couture leather. This leather looked as though someone had taken a little chisel to it, raising up and crafting individual little squares and then giving the leather an overall sparkle. They called this Baby Shogun, and had tried a bigger pattern before. The joy of this small pattern is that as well as being used in combination with smooth leathers it can be made into complete garments in its own right giving a really distinctive look.

Best New Leather