Hey Guys, 

I’m sure you’ve seen that we now have the Bond All-Purpose Briefcase in vegan leather. We’ve decided on this because of the requests from some of you guys, but also because we recognise how the world is changing today and as a company, we’d like to constantly find alternatives beyond our conventional norms. To be precise, the material we’re using is Microfibre Leather and I wanted to explain more about this choice of vegan leather for you guys. Here it is: 

What is Microfibre Leather? 

Microfibre leather is actually short for microfibre PU (polyurethane) and is a type of faux or synthetic leather. While other synthetics start by laying down strips of fabric and coating those with polyurethane resin, Microfibre leather starts with a “mat” of synthetic fibers woven together and bound together with polyurethane. This closely mimics the construction of real leather, which substitutes skin fibres for microfibre.

As good as Microfibre leather is across the board, it is also important to note that some are better than others. You can tell how good the material is by looking closely at it – the harder it is to distinguish it from leather, the higher quality it is. 

How durable is Microfibre leather? 

As mentioned before, Microfibre leather is more durable as compared to other synthetic leathers because these “traditional” synthetic leathers are simply sheets of material spray painted to look like leather and coated with polyurethane to protect its appearance, making them weak and fragile. 

Instead, Microfibre leather has the strength of real leather and is the highest grade of faux leather available today. In fact, the highest quality of Microfibre leather has some advantages over real leather, such as the fact that it doesn’t age as quickly and doesn’t peel.

The small pores of Microfibre make it more water resistant as compared to real leather and you can make it more waterproof by using certain sprays available in the market. 

Microfibre leather vs. other materials


Microfibre leather vs Bonded leather

Bonded leather is bits and pieces of leather (a bit like saw dust) glued together and painted. Hence Microfibre looks and feels more like real leather, and is stronger and more durable than Bonded leather. 

Microfibre leather vs Polyurethane leather 

Microfibre leather is merely the most advanced version of traditional Polyurethane leather. It is stronger, more durable and looks and feels a lot more like animal leather. 

Microfibre leather vs top/full grain leather 

Surprisingly, Microfibre leather stacks up quite well against top and full grain animal leathers. Even though obviously, real leather has a better look and feel and has that distinctive leather smell of real leather. Real top/full grain leather is also slightly stronger. However, Microfibre leather resists water better, slightly lighter and has better anti-bacterial, anti-mildew properties. In addition, even though we use high quality Microfibre leather, it is still slightly cheaper than top/full grain leather. We’ve considered a number of factors before deciding on microfibre leather and will continue to explore and experiment with better alternatives.  

Best,
Joseph