Sure, chickens may be high on protein, but it’s a possibility that chicken feet leather (also an eco-friendly byproduct) could be on its way to become a high-end fashion trend too. The leather industry has seen several trends from emu leather to ostrich leather. But here’s something that has been in the works for a while now — chicken feet leather (CFL).
Two Horns, a three-year-old company last week fashioned a chicken feet leather air pod pouch, making them the first brand to tie up with the Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) and use CFL. “I was following the news for a long time to see when CFL will come to India first. I then saw that CLRI was developing the leather, so I contacted them and showed them my designs,” says Jayavardhan Sampath, owner of Two Horns. “The leather is sourced in India itself from discarded poultry waste. The process remains the same as actual leather procurement, except here we’ve used an eco-friendly agent as the skin is extremely thin, delicate and frayed at the edges.” We notice that the patterns on this leather are also different, making it more scaly and grainy.
Hoping to launch it in a week, Jayavardhan along with his wife Sujitha fashioned air pod holders and coin holders out of them, all of which will be available soon online.
With a background in visual communication from College of Arts in Chennai, Jayavardhan with his wife started Two Horns using only veg tan leather from cattle hide — a rare technique that involves only natural ingredients like tree bark, grounded seeds and such for the tanning process. “Leather is otherwise procured by soaking it in a lot of chemicals. We wanted to make chemical-free leather for our products at our unit in Aynavaram,” explains Jayavardhan, adding that he designs the products and develops a prototype which is then used for a month, to check for pros and cons. “We are planning to launch a biker collection next, the star of which is going to be a biker tank bag with magnets which can be stuck on the tanks,” concludes Jayavardhan.
Products start at `500