Another one for the “new materials” file is Sruli Recht’s translucent leather, made from cow skin. Working for over three years on the Apparition, a collaborative line of apparel with Dutch company ECCO, Sruli’s translucent leather possesses a quality that’s absolutely ground-breaking and new to the material. Available in grey, white, green, red, and burgundy, the leather looks almost like parchment paper, with its translucent, crinkled quality, but feels like leather fabric. Translucent leather has been achieved before, but the result has always been hard and difficult to manipulate (like the skin of a drum). Recht’s translucent leather feels much more natural and lends itself to use in garments, and sees itself being used for jackets, track-pants, and even the shoes (shown below).
The shoes come with the eye-catching translucent leather upper, and an outsole that reflects the leather’s crinkly style with its edgy, faceted form. The name Apparition was given to the fashion line after its translucent, ghostly appearance, and the resulting leather is literally a class apart in its aesthetics (creating a category of its own), but behaves exactly like you’d expect leather to behave. Yes, it’s water-resistant too!
Designer: Sruli Recht for ECCO
