Ew

A warning, this might not be for the faint of heart.

I heard about this on the radio show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Somebody has decided to produce skin in a lab from human DNA and then use it... to make leather. Then use the leather for clothing and accessories. Designer, Tina Gorjanc, gives reasons for her Pure Human line of products on her website, but the reasons are very difficult to understand and all I can come up with is that they are trying to use sophisticated, artsy-sounding words and get away with it and/or it is a publicity stunt for the designer. (She wants to "address shortcomings concerning the protection of biological information" and move the debate into the court system?) (Because that's the job of designers of clothing and accessories.)

http://dropr.com/tina_gorjanc/102660/pure_human/+?p=1309224

Photo by Parke Ladd / CC BY 2.0

As if that wasn't creepy enough, they're going to call the items "Tanned Bag" (with a tan line where the label was laying over the bag), "Freckled Backpack" and "Tattooed Jacket".

I have read that blog posts should always include a picture, but I'm not going to include one here from the designer's site for a variety of reasons. One, the images are most likely copyrighted and I have less than no desire to be taken to court by a company or designer who makes human skin in a lab and then users that to make leather accessories. Two, I believe I read on the site somewhere (or in an article about them) that the images are mock-ups made from pig skin. And three: ew.

But, to make this story even more disturbing, as I was searching for this designer (after I  heard about it on the radio) I came across another company who claims to use donated skin to make leather. They went as far a to describe the best part of the body to use.

All in all I'd say that people have far too much time on their hands and they need to stop.

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