Ganni’s New Vegan Bag Is Made From Orange And Cacti Waste

When Ganni set its ambitious target to eliminate its use of virgin leather by the end of 2023, the cult Scandi brand knew it would be a tough challenge. “People still feel that leather is luxury,” creative director Ditte Reffstrup tells Vogue.

Ganni decided to phase out virgin leather completely after discovering that it was its single biggest polluter, despite only making up seven per cent of its collections. “For us, it’s just a matter of bringing down our carbon footprint,” founder Nicolaj Reffstrup explains. The brand has a target of reducing absolute emissions by 50 per cent by 2027, without the help of the murky practice of carbon offsetting. “You just need to look at the means you have to achieve that target, and phasing out leather is an obvious one,” he adds.

That’s why Ganni has been shifting towards leather alternatives such as Mylo, made from mycelium, or mushroom roots, and Vegea, created using grape waste, over the past two years. Now, it is introducing a new vegan leather into the mix: Ohoskin. Made using orange and cacti waste from the food and beauty industries, combined with recycled plastics, the lower-impact material is being used to create the brand’s new hero product, the Bou bag, named after the Reffstrups’s daughter, Betty Lou.

“It was really important that we had a material that had a luxury leather feeling,” Ditte says of the appeal of Ohoskin. “Our sourcing team actually did a test on us, and it was very difficult to see [it wasn’t] real leather – many people can’t tell the difference.” Durability was another big factor: the team did a wear test with Ohoskin and found that it performed just as well, and in some cases better, than conventional leather.