Leatherette
Leatherette (ecological leather, eco-leather, artificial leather) is a material that imitates natural leather.
Structure
Leatherette is a polyester fabric covered with a special layer of polyvinyl chloride.
Advantages
Leatherette is valued for its:
- attractive price (it is much lower than natural leather)
- being ecological (animals are not killed for leatherette production and during natural leather production they are)
- high quality that is constantly improved (every year leatherette producers introduce some improvements to the technological process of leatherette production in order to achieve the best quality that will satisfy each and every client).
- being easy to keep clean.
Used
Leatherette is used for:
- production and restoration of furniture covering
- car upholstery
- accessories
Terminology
The most common word used for the material imitating natural leather is leatherette. However, there are also other terms such as eco-leather, artificial leather, ecological leather, faux leather and pleather. The reason why there is such a wide range of terms used to denote this material is related to the fact that producers and upholsterers use different names to talk about the fabric imitating natural leather and the term has not been standardised. The terms “leatherette” or “artificial leather” are mainly used.