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The 6 Best Vegan Leather Purses: Pros, Cons & Top Brands

Emma Loewe
Author:
September 21, 2024
Emma Loewe
By Emma Loewe
mbg Contributor
Emma Loewe is the former Sustainability and Health Director at mindbodygreen. She is the author of "Return to Nature: The New Science of How Natural Landscapes Restore Us" and the co-author of "The Spirit Almanac: A Modern Guide To Ancient Self Care." Emma received her B.A. in Environmental Science & Policy with a specialty in environmental communications from Duke University. In addition to penning over 1,500 mbg articles on topics from the water crisis in California to the rise of urban beekeeping, her work has appeared on Grist, Bloomberg News, Bustle, and Forbes.
Image by AnSyvanych / iStock
September 21, 2024
We carefully vet all products and services featured on mindbodygreen using our commerce guidelines. Our selections are never influenced by the commissions earned from our links.

A purse is an everyday wardrobe staple that can say a lot about the person carrying it.

If you're hoping that yours tells the world you have a classic style—but also care about animal livelihood—vegan leather purses are probably on your radar.

Shopping for the best vegan purses that will spare animals without destroying the environment? We've got those in the bag.

Here are the pros and cons of this material, plus some of our favorite brands.

The best vegan leather purses

The pros and cons of vegan leather purses

Vegan leather is not made from animals—a win for vegans and those concerned about animal cruelty in the fashion industry. It also avoids some of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with raising livestock.

And while conventional leather often needs to be treated with dangerous chemicals like formaldehyde1, vegan leather doesn't require the preservative. Instead, vegan leather mimics some of the positive qualities of leather—durability, breathability, flexibility, wrinkle-resistance—using materials other than animal skin. So, what are those? What does the "P" in the infamous pleather stand for?

More often than not, vegan leather is made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polyurethane (PU). "In other words," Preeti Gopinath, a textile designer and associate professor at Parsons' School of Fashion tells mbg, "it's plastic."

And as we all now know, plastics derived from fossil fuels come with a number of environmental concerns. They are energy-intensive to produce, difficult to responsibly dispose of, and tend to linger in the environment for a long, long time. From this standpoint, vegan leather is not the most sustainable material.

Part of what makes it so difficult to create a truly sustainable vegan leather—one that is petroleum-free and biodegradable—is that it takes chemicals to achieve many of the impressive qualities of leather.

As Gopinath points out, biodegradable fabrics are meant to degrade in sun, wind, and water, yet we want our leather alternatives to stand up to all of these elements when we use them. "We are asking the material to do too many things," she says. "We are asking it to be biodegradable and resist water and sun. If it has to resist all of that, obviously it won't be biodegradable."

At the end of the day, sustainable stylist Cassandra Dittmer agrees that comparing vegan leather to animal leather is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. They're different, and one isn't inherently better than the other from an environmental perspective.

Which one you choose will require you to weigh the pros and cons, and then decide which qualities you value most.

Pros:

  • Cruelty-free
  • Long-lasting
  • Can be affordable

Cons:

  • Often slow to degrade in the environment
  • Often chemical-intensive to produce
  • Often contains plastic

If you are willing to splurge on a vegan purse made mostly from plants, we rounded up some of the best options out there.

They are made using the best and brightest in renewable, plant-based materials, or recycled plastic materials where that isn't possible.

If you're not quite ready to shell out, we also included some more affordable polyurethane (PU) options that are responsibly made and easy to love for life.

Each brand also has some sustainability perks of its own, like low-waste packaging or a philanthropic commitment.

Best tote: Santos Agave Triangular Tote in Green

Main material: Cactus fiber

Price: $250

The outside of this funky purse is handcrafted from cactus fiber "leather," while the inside is lined with a blend of cotton and recycled plastic bottles. For each handbag sold, Santos also plants a tree with One Tree Planted

Santos Agave Triangular Tote in Green

green vegan leather purse
Santos

Best work bag: Alexandra K Model 1.4

Main material: Byproducts from the wine industry

Price: $346.14

This bag is worth the splurge for its transparency and commitment to innovative plant-based materials: The sleek black Model 1.4 is "grape leather," made from 75% wine leftovers and grape oil, 25% polyurethane. Held together with nontoxic glue and handmade hardware, it's a stunner down to the details.

Alexandra K Model 1.4

black work bag made of vegan leather
Alexandra K

Best clutch: Mashu Philippa White

Main material: Cactus fiber and cork

Price: $367.50

Both a clutch and a crossbody thanks to a removable chain, this versatile bag is made from 50% cactus fiber, 50% cork. Handmade in Greece, it would make a stunning impression worldwide.

Mashu Philippa White 

white purse with metal chain
Mashu

Best crossbody: Angela Roi Grace Micro Crossbody

Main material: Polyurethane

Price: $195

This textured polyurethane bag from cult-favorite vegan brand Angela Roi is decked out with a cellphone compartment and an adjustable chain strap, making it a functional pick for daily use. The company also seeks to be transparent about its labor practices and claims to pay its hand-crafters fair wages to work in clean, comfortable factory conditions. 

Angela Roi Grace Micro Crossbody

red vegan crossbody purse with silver chain
Angela Roi

Best statement bag: HOZEN Black Heart Bag

Main material: Polyurethane

Price: $160

Dittmer commends small L.A.-based company HOZEN for its give-back program. If you've outgrown any of their bags, you can send them in to be recycled (and snag a discount on your next one). Made from biopolyoil—polyurethane mixed with a byproduct of the grain industry—its heart-shaped bag is a vegan dream.

HOZEN Black Heart Bag

black vegan leather bag in heart shape with strap
HOZEN

Best satchel: MATT & NAT Adel Micro Vegan Satchel

Main material: Polyurethane

Price: $77

This sharp satchel is made from polyurethane, and the interior lining is created from recycled plastic bottles. As part of the brand's "Purity" collection, its outer coating is made from recycled windshield glass resin. We love that it comes with a detachable, adjustable crossbody strap to fit multiple occasions.

MATT & NAT Adel Micro Vegan Satchel

vegan micro satchel purse
MATT & NAT

Things to look for

Pleather purses are long-lasting. That's a negative if they're sitting in a landfill but a positive if they're sitting in your closet. So if you are going to buy a vegan purse made from plastic material, the best thing you can do is find one you'll want to own for life.

"I will be the first person to say: Use nylon, use polyester, use these synthetics—but only if you're not going to throw them away," Gopinath says.

You'll also want to be careful how you care for your keepsake, as plastic microparticles can be shed in the wash and pollute waterways. Thankfully, this isn't as much of a concern with synthetic purses as it is with, say, bathing suits.

To guide your shopping, Dittmer points out that some vegan leathers made from PVC and PU incorporate recycled materials, like plastic water bottles. Better yet, there are also a number of up-and-coming vegan leather materials that are made from plants and not plastics.

"Piñatex is a common one from pineapple leaf fiber that has made its way to a bunch of big brands," Dittmer says, and leather made from mycelium hides and algae coating are also in development.

Gopinath is excited to see some of her own students working on these bio-based, plastic-free leathers, though she notes that it will take time and money for them to become as affordable, accessible, and readily available as animal leather. In the meantime, they tend to be tougher to find and cost a pretty penny.

The takeaway

While it's not a perfect material (very few are!), vegan leather can find a home in a sustainable, slow fashion wardrobe—as long as it's chosen carefully, well cared for, and loved for a long time.

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