Growing leather without an animal might seem futuristic but this is now reality. Biofabrication enables humans to grow nature’s materials using living cells instead of animals. We can now grow collagen, a protein you find in animal skin, from which a leather ‘hide’ can be constructed. Depending on the desired features, the material can be designed and engineered to deliver the right structural and aesthetic properties. It is then tanned and finished through an efficient, ecologically mindful process to give the material its final character.