Patrick McDowell spotlights bio-leather trench coat at Future Fabrics Expo

Patrick McDowell’s dusty red trench coat turned the 2026 Future Fabrics Expo in Brussels into a live test for bio-based luxury. Made with Caxacori Studio’s shiringa bio-leather, the exclusive A/W 2026 piece was presented less like a concept sample and more like a coat that wants a place in a wardrobe, not just a display case.

That is the real question hanging over materials innovation right now: can a fabric win because it looks good, or because it works harder than the fossil-based stuff it is meant to replace? Collective Fashion Justice says the shiringa material can outdo animal skin in suppleness, durability, water resistance and flexibility, which is exactly the kind of claim that matters when a trench coat has to handle rain, movement and daily wear. Emma Håkansson has also pointed to its bold color palette, and McDowell’s dusty red version showed how far bio-leather has moved from beige, earnest prototype energy into something fashion people would actually wear.

The material itself comes from sap collected from the shiringa tree, a latex-based rubber tree that Fashion Declares says can grow to about 40 metres tall. The trees used in the process have been standing for around 100 years, and the tapping described by Fashion Declares is regenerative and community-based, involving Awajún women such as Rosalia and Doris Pape Petsa in the Peruvian Amazon. Jorge Cajacuri, who founded Caxacori Studio, first learned about the Awajún relationship with their shiringa tree through the United Nations Environment Programme. That provenance is powerful, but scaling it is where the market gets real: a material tied to slow-growing trees, community labor and forest stewardship has to prove it can be supplied consistently, priced competitively and finished well enough to compete with animal leather already entrenched in luxury.

Brrr is pushing a different kind of sustainability pitch, one that lives in the performance aisle rather than the fashion-science showcase. Its cooling fabric combines natural cooling minerals, active wicking and rapid drying, and the company says its Triple Chill Effect can lower skin temperature by several degrees. It also says the technology is permanently embedded in yarn, so it does not wash out the way some sprayed-on treatments can. That matters because a cooling textile only earns shelf space if it keeps working after repeated wear, laundering and friction, not just on day one under show lights.

Brrr, founded in 2014 by a former Spanx executive and based in Atlanta, also says it offers recycled, hemp and bamboo versions, with materials aligned to GRS and OEKO-TEX standards. Together with McDowell’s trench, the message from Brussels was blunt: sustainable materials are no longer being judged on story alone. They have to outperform the old guard in hand feel, weather resistance, comfort and durability, or they stay stuck as beautiful prototypes.