MELINA BUCHER has the vision to create completely circular vegan
leather goods in the future and is therefore involved in different EU research projects to investigate and develop materials.

After years of development, MELINA BUCHER was the first brand worldwide to launch a handbag made with the progressively vegan material MIRUM®, a 100% bio-based and plastic-free vegan leather material. MIRUM® is made from natural raw materials only and designed to safely return to nature after use. For inner lining, MELINA BUCHER uses certified organic cotton from a German textile manufacturer, as well as zippers made in Germany and metal accessories made in Italy. We are currently working with different material innovators to develop innovative, plastic-free reinforcements made from hemp, algae or mycelium.

To learn more about our material developments, visit our lab.

MELINA BUCHER handbags and small leather goods are handmade in our own atelier in Germany. Some selected items are made by European partner manufactories. You can find details on the transparency map of your selected product.

We try to minimize our transport links as much as possible by working with local suppliers and a European supply chain in a close area (except for MIRUM® vegan leather that is right now only produced in the US).

MELINA BUCHER runs its own atelier where we manufacture our handbags and small leather goods in a made-to-order process. We ship to our customers with DHL GoGreen and similar services with CO2 compensation whenever possible. For the shipment to you, we use recycled card boxes and paper-based tape with vegan glue as well as bio-based international invoice envelopes. The paper we use in our office is Cradle-to-Cradle Silver certified and made in Germany. On our product pages you can find a transparency map with more information on the suppliers of the exact product you are interested in.

MELINA BUCHER has the vision to create fully circular vegan leather goods. We are therefore investigating a lot of different biomaterials in our lab and our design work includes creatively working with those materials in new and exciting ways.

Durability, trans-seasonality and multifunctionality play a key role in our exclusive collections. MELINA BUCHER handbags are characterized by a timeless, yet modern design that plays with contrasts: traditional, century old bag craftsmanship meets next generation materials; soft curves meet precise geometric lines and luxury meets empathy.

Most of our products are created in a made-to-order process where each item is exclusively handmade for you in our German atelier. This way we ensure that we do only produce what you want and need.

The easy answer is “yes”, because the peer-reviewed studies comparing animal leather and leather alternatives on different sustainability measures (carbon
footprint, water intensity, energy intensity, toxicity) show a clear direction towards vegan leather alternatives having lower footprints.

However, ecological sustainability has many dimensions and there is no large data body on direct comparisons between animal leather and vegan alternatives. Also, there is a huge variation between different vegan leathers or animal leathers depending on where they are produced, which type of processes are implemented and which energy mix is used. For example, there is a huge difference between a chrome-tanned leather made in Bangladesh and a veg tanned leather made in Germany. The same applies for “vegan leathers”: there are many different technologies like synthetic leather (made from PU or PVC), plant plastic hybrids or mycelium. Those are also manufactured in different countries in different processes.

So let’s look at the materials we are using: MIRUM®, the 100% bio-based and plastic-free vegan leather we use for our collections, emits ca. 2.1 kg CO2 equivalents / kg of material. This is ca. 90% less than the average animal leather in studies. It also needs neither water nor chemical dyes during closed-loop manufacturing. And it is circular by design, meaning cuttings, scraps, and worn-out MIRUM® can be recycled into new MIRUM®, closing the production loop. As it is bio-based and bioneutral, MIRUM® can ultimately rejoin the Earth’s nutrient cycle, closing the natural loop.

You can learn more about the sustainability of animal leather and vegan materials according to different criteria in our magazine.

Our current main focus is “good in, good out”, meaning that we work
on creating leather goods with natural materials only that can safely return to nature without releasing any toxins. We are therefore working with circularity experts and in EU-funded R&D projects to investigate biomaterials for all parts of leather goods, like reinforcements, dyes, glues and edge paints.

You can learn more about our projects in our lab.