There is something quietly radical about taking a look at a fruit peel and declining to see waste. Salak and lychee skins are typically dealt with as the most disposable part of the fruit, peeled, discarded, and forgotten almost immediately. PEEL starts at that specific moment of termination. Rather of blending the skins down, camouflaging them, or forcing them to act like leather, the job lets them remain noticeably themselves.
Developed by designer Anthony Guevara, PEEL changes disposed of salak and lychee skins into a durable, eco-friendly fabric made without adhesives, synthetic polymers, or poisonous chemical treatments. The material offers a regenerative alternative to leather and petroleum-based vegan replacements, with estimated CO two emissions approximately 95% lower. What makes the work compelling is that it does not rely on the usual visual language of “sustainable design.” It is not trying to look clean, neutral, or excessively sleek. It brings the roughness, colour shifts, scale-like patterns, and irregular surface areas of the skins it comes from.
Designer: Nefeli Vitoraki
The task is deeply rooted in Indonesia, where salak and lychee are widely consumed, and their skins are disposed of in large quantities every day. These fruits also have a brief life span, which means their peels are regularly available through existing food systems. This matters due to the fact that PEEL does not depend upon growing a new crop or creating an additional supply chain for material production. It begins with what already exists, what is currently plentiful, and what is currently being discarded.
The process takes care rather than excessively commercial. After the fruits are consumed, the skins are collected and dried through a regulated low-heat process. This action protects the natural structure and pliability of each peel, which is vital for turning it into a fabric. The skins are then treated with naturally obtained products to enhance resilience and water resistance.
When steady, they are sewn onto naturally degradable support structures such as cotton muslin or linen. That stitching is necessary. Numerous plant-based leather options are processed into uniform sheets, typically requiring synthetic binders or coverings to hold everything together. In doing so, they remove the character of the original material. PEEL takes the opposite route. Each skin is treated and applied individually, so the final fabric brings visible traces of the fruit’s form, colour, and texture. The result feels less like imitation leather and more like a material with its own identity.
From a style point of view, sincerity is one of the greatest parts of the project. Sustainable products typically get pressed into showing themselves by looking like something familiar. Mushroom leather needs to look like leather. Cactus leather needs to look like leather. Grape waste, apple waste, pineapple fiber, all of them are often evaluated by how convincingly they can replace an existing product. PEEL withstands that pressure. It does not apologize for the reality that it used to be fruit skin. It constructs its visual and tactile language from that origin.
The advancement procedure also reveals the material’s stubbornness. PEEL began with salak alone, without any guarantee that the skins could become usable. Early experiments concentrated on drying techniques due to the fact that the peels were too brittle to sew by device. The very first model, a stool, had to be hand-stitched throughout. More than fifty tests followed, adjusting mixes of naturally derived treatments up until the material ended up being flexible, resilient, and convenient. The second model, a bag, expanded the system to lychee and four other tropical fruit peels.
Home screening across abrasion, water, heat, humidity, and bend tiredness showed promising outcomes across all 6 materials. Every peel demonstrated high heat and humidity resistance, and samples have stayed stable for over a year. These early outcomes suggest that the job is more than a beautiful material experiment. It has the potential to become a practical textile system, specifically for applications where biodegradability, regional sourcing, and unique surface quality are valuable.
The local production design makes the concept stronger. Given that the skins can be sourced where the fruits are processed or consumed, PEEL pictures a closed regional loop: fruit is consumed, skins are gathered, material is made, and items are produced within the same neighborhood. This keeps the product connected to the place. It also develops a chance for little regional workshops in Indonesian fruit-growing regions, turning a low-value waste stream into a new economic resource.
The next step is bringing more rigour to the screening and supply chain. Guevara is working toward collaborations with Indonesian fruit processing factories where skins are currently discarded, creating a zero-cost raw material source. In parallel, partnership with Imperial College London intends to formalise laboratory testing for tensile strength, abrasion resistance, and long-term resilience.
PEEL is intriguing due to the fact that it does not frame sustainability as a surface, a label, or a moral claim connected to the end of an item. It starts with material behaviour. It asks what a peel can do before choosing what it must become. That shift feels essential. The project is not just about replacing leather. It has to do with expanding the designer’s creativity around overlooked matter and treating waste as something with kind, memory, and capacity still left in it.
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