Faux real : genuine leather and 200 years of inspired fakes

What makes genuine leather genuine? What makes real things real? In an age of virtual reality, veneers, synthetics, plastics, fakes, and knockoffs, it's hard to know. Over the centuries, men and women have devoted enormous energy to making fake things seem real. As early as the fourteenth century, fabric was treated with special oils to make it resemble leather. In the 1870s came Leatherette, a new bookbinding material. The twentieth century gave us Fabrikoid, Naugahyde, Corfam, and Ultrasuede. Each claims to transcend leather's limitations, to do better than nature itself—or at least to convince consumers that it does. Perhaps more than any other natural material, leather stands for the authentic and the genuine. Its animal roots etched in its pores and in the swirls of its grain, leather serves as cultural shorthand for the virtues of the real over the synthetic, the original over the copy, the luxurious over the shoddy and second-rate. From formica, vinyl siding, and particle board to cubic zirconium, knockoff designer bags, and genetically altered foods, inspired fakes of every description fly the polyester pennant of a brave new man-made world. Each represents a journey of scientific, technical, and entrepreneurial innovation. Faux Real explores this borderland of the almost-real, the ersatz, and the fake, illuminating a centuries-old culture war between the authentic and the imitative.

From Leatherette to Naugahyde, men and women have devoted enormous energy to making fake leather seem real. Faux Real explores this borderland of the almost-real, the ersatz, and the fake, illuminating a centuries-old culture war between the authentic and the imitative.

Wade Lee - Library Journal

Kanigel (science writing, MIT; The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan) provides more than a mere history of leather making and the quest for an artificial replacement. He also delves into what we mean when we speak of realand natural, particularly how these terms might be applied in the mass production of what has historically been handicraft and in the search for human-made materials that reproduce leather's properties. In the tanning industry, where chromium has largely displaced vegetable and animal waste-derived treatments and any pattern can be embossed on leather, on what basis can claims of natural be made? The history of leather substitutes is charted mostly through the exemplars of Naugahyde, Corfam, and Ultrasuede and demonstrates how the materials of the day were adapted to simulate the look, feel, and durability of leather at a cheaper cost. Included is a categorized bibliography aptly covering the technical, business, and psychosocial aspects of this subject. The technical prose is precise and engaging; recommended for academic libraries as well as for the science or business departments of large public libraries.

What makes genuine leather genuine? What makes real things real? In an age of virtual reality, veneers, synthetics, plastics, fakes, and knockoffs, it's hard to know.

Over the centuries, men and women have devoted enormous energy to making fake things seem real. As early as the fourteenth century, fabric was treated with special oils to make it resemble leather. In the 1870s came Leatherette, a new bookbinding material. The twentieth century gave us Fabrikoid, Naugahyde, Corfam, and Ultrasuede. Each claims to transcend leather's limitations, to do better than nature itself—or at least to convince consumers that it does.

Perhaps more than any other natural material, leather stands for the authentic and the genuine. Its animal roots etched in its pores and in the swirls of its grain, leather serves as cultural shorthand for the virtues of the real over the synthetic, the original over the copy, the luxurious over the shoddy and second-rate. From formica, vinyl
siding, and particle board to cubic zirconium, knockoff designer bags, and genetically altered foods, inspired fakes of every description fly the polyester pennant of a brave new man-made world. Each represents a journey of scientific, technical, and entrepreneurial innovation. Faux Real explores this borderland of the almost-real, the ersatz, and the fake, illuminating a centuries-old culture war between the authentic and the imitative.

Pt. I. Imitating the inimitable. Material world "Let the good work go on" Leather alive Bizarre effects One nature Nothing like leather "All shortcomings have been eliminated" Top grain Pt. II. Inspired fakes. What nature had in mind Crocodile dreams Vera pelle.