Leather’s impact on the environment: Good or bad? And is it that simple?

Here to provide some balance in the ongoing debate about the use of our land, fast fashion, and our future – Rewind is a new documentary series that sets out to bust some myths and ask some questions.

Courtesy of The Wine Show and Blue Juice’s award-winning Director Carl Prechezer and funded by Real Leather. Stay Different., it makes the case for using leather as a sustainable by-product of the meat and dairy industries – and as a way to break the fast fashion cycle. 

The message is simple. By ‘Rewinding’, looking back at how we used to manage the land and use its outputs, we can begin to reverse the damage caused to our soils through intensive farming and provide a natural alternative to the synthetic materials and faux leathers that are plastic based and polluting our planet.

In four five-minute episodes, Farming, Fashion, Food and the Future, Rewind captures the thoughts of chefs and tanners, scientists and fashion editors, NGOs, and environmental auditors – and draws on some surprising data and research from a range of sources as diverse as The United Nations and BP. The result is an interesting mix of hard data and personal perspectives that challenges the current vogue on what we should eat or wear, and what our choices mean for our planet. We can’t rewind history, but we can shape our future.

Each episode examines a different area. The first installment looks at farming. Although leather is a by-product of the meat and dairy industries, to the consumer its production is inextricably linked to agriculture. We examine the best uses of land, the real effects of cattle’s methane emissions and the environmental consequences of not using cowhide.