\n<\/p>\n
A<\/span>fter more than a decade as a fashion designer, Dana Cohen was disillusioned. Excessive waste was rampant in every part of the industry \u2013 from surplus samples, to manufacturing scraps, to retail stores with \u201ca disheveled mountain of garments that nobody wanted\u201d, she said. \u201cI was like, \u2018I just don\u2019t want to be a part of it any more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Then Cohen, who had designed for brands including Banana Republic, Club Monaco and J Crew, had a chance encounter with a manufacturer that changed her course. Drishti Lifestyle, based in India, had a container full of leather scraps it didn\u2019t want to discard. Together they experimented, and made some wallets and a handbag, all of which sold out. That was the very start of Cohen\u2019s sustainable leather accessories company \u2013 and her mission to make a dent in the industry\u2019s immense waste problem.<\/p>\n Launched in November 2019, Hyer Goods sells bags, wallets and other accessories made entirely from deadstocks: leftover scraps that would otherwise end up in landfills. Specifically, it uses luxury leather leftovers, retrieved from designer heavyweights like Hermes, Chanel, and Valentino. Deadstocks are sourced both directly from Italian factories \u2013 such as a tannery in the outskirts of Naples, Russo di Casandrino \u2013 and via \u201cpeople on the ground\u201d in Italy who have longstanding relationships with those brands.<\/p>\n <\/span>Dana Cohen, the owner and designer of Hyer Goods, in her store in Manhattan, New York.<\/span> Photograph: Tobias Everke\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The scraps are then transported to family-run factories in Italy\u2019s Marche region, on the Adriatic coast: a mother-daughter-run factory produces the bags, and down the road, a father-son-run-factory assembles the wallets. \u201cWe literally load the scraps from the bags in a little car and drive it to the wallet factory,\u201d Cohen said.<\/p>\n Designer brands typically only use the very highest grades of leather, so Hyer takes the \u201coff-cuts\u201d that are still above par, but may have blemishes like tick bites or stretch marks, and cuts around them.<\/p>\n Given the reliance on whatever is available, the Hyer collection is inherently small-batch, and a single line of bags might comprise a mix of different leathers. \u201cWe have never made 500 pieces of anything,\u201d Cohen said.<\/p>\n The unpredictable supply can be hard. \u201cIt\u2019s not for the faint of heart,\u201d Cohen said. But she estimates this model has kept approximately 7,000 pounds of leather in circulation \u2013 and out of landfills \u2013 over the last six years of operation.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a start in healing an industry that sends some 92m tonnes of textiles to landfills every year, producing between 4% and 8% of the world\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n \u201cI appreciate any company that\u2019s really trying to work towards the circular economy,\u201d said Ann Cantrell, associate professor of fashion business management at New York\u2019s Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), \u201cwhich is trying to keep things in the loop as long as we can and not go to landfill.\u201d She said Hyer Goods\u2019s model follows the \u201ctriple bottom line\u201d: operating not only for profitability, but also for improving conditions for people and for the planet. If more businesses operate with such models, they can \u201ccontinue to challenge the status quo\u201d around issues like the overuse of virgin materials, she said.<\/p>\n Leather is particularly troublesome for its connection to cattle ranching, which is linked to deforestation, mass water use, and the emission of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Tanning also uses toxic chemicals that can contaminate waterways. On the other hand, leather is an extremely durable product, sometimes lasting decades. \u201cSo from that perspective, it is a sustainable material,\u201d said Cantrell.<\/p>\n Sustainability is nuanced. \u201cThere\u2019s no perfectly sustainable material,\u201d said Elizabeth Cline, an author and expert on fast fashion and sustainability. But Cline said repurposing genuine leather is better than producing so-called vegan leather, or faux leather, which is made of plastics, even when it also contains some plant-based materials like cork or apple peels. \u201cYou\u2019re eliminating the animal welfare issue, but creating new environmental problems,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The reality is that high-end consumers are still buying genuine leather. While Hyer\u2019s average customer is the sustainable-minded person looking for greener alternatives, Cohen said she is starting to see more luxury-driven customers.<\/p>\n <\/span>Dana Cohen, the owner and designer of Hyer Goods together with her creative partnet David Siskin, in front of her store in Manhattan, New York.<\/span> Photograph: Tobias Everke\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Hyer\u2019s bestselling Ring Bag, made from lambskin Nappa, a premium leather known for its softness, typically sells for $465 \u2013 nothing to sneeze at but still a far cry from luxury brands that retail for several thousand dollars.<\/p>\n Cohen launched Hyer Goods just months before the pandemic. <\/strong>People weren\u2019t buying fancy handbags during lockdowns so she briefly pivoted to sewing masks with leftover fabrics \u2013 even curtains \u2013 that she crowdsourced on social media. Consulting followers for opinions has continued to be a strategy. \u201cI think people really like being a part of the process,\u201d she says. \u201cNot only is it a great way to connect with community, but it\u2019s a really good way to make smart decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n Soon, the bags gained the attention of influential figures like Katie Couric and internet chef Alison Roman. When Roman recommended the bags to her followers: \u201cThat was one of the best days for us, ever,\u201d Cohen said.<\/p>\n Major brands like Bloomingdales, Nordstrom and Madewell now sell Hyer Goods bags, and in 2024, Cohen opened a brick-and-mortar store in New York\u2019s West Village after winning a grant from the nonprofit ChaShaMa, which supports women and minority artists by providing them with subsidized real estate spaces.<\/p>\n Beginning April, the Trump administration imposed 10% tariffs on goods from Italy, leaving Cohen little choice <\/strong>but to raise prices. The price bumps initially led to a \u201chuge dip\u201d in sales, she said. Volumes seem back to normal now, though that\u2019s hard to parse out due to seasonal shifts. \u201cI\u2019m not sure if the customer has gotten used to it, but I certainly haven\u2019t,\u201d she said. (In July, Trump announced additional tariffs on European goods, which European trade officials said would make continuing US-EU trade \u201c\u201calmost impossible\u201d.)<\/p>\n <\/span>Dana Cohen, the owner and designer of Hyer Goods, in her store in Manhattan, New York.<\/span> Photograph: Tobias Everke\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Cohen said she has no plans to move operations to the US; many factories that she had considered weren\u2019t capable of details like edge painting (to protect leather edges from fraying), which would sacrifice quality. \u201cThe craftsmanship that you can get in Italy just doesn\u2019t compare,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2018Made in USA was just not an option.\u201d<\/p>\n Cohen, who has five part-time employees, said she\u2019d like to expand products into belts and shoes, start sourcing deadstock Italian cottons, and open a second store, perhaps in Brooklyn. She\u2019d like to be fully circular, including hardware like zippers, which are not made from scraps.<\/p>\n But economic volatility \u2013 and simply the nature of a bootstrapped business that depends on a fluctuating supply \u2013 have delayed some of those plans. \u201cAny dreams I had, I\u2019ve put on hold,\u201d she said. \u201cRight now it\u2019s just: how can we stay afloat?\u201d<\/p>\n But nothing has changed her mission, which comes before any growth ambitions, she said. \u201cMy goal was never to be a behemoth organization,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cI just want to have a nice, small business for people who care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After more than a decade as a fashion designer, Dana Cohen was disillusioned. Excessive waste was rampant in every part of the industry \u2013 from surplus samples, to manufacturing scraps, to retail stores with \u201ca disheveled mountain of garments that nobody wanted\u201d, she said. \u201cI was like, \u2018I just don\u2019t want to be a part<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[4508,2205,4510,1492,4507,4506,4509,3606,1681],"class_list":{"0":"post-11220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-chanel","9":"tag-designer","10":"tag-fashion","11":"tag-goods","12":"tag-hermes","13":"tag-landfill","14":"tag-leather","15":"tag-luxury","16":"tag-scraps"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}