Time-honored Millinery Meets Conscious Innovation With Simon And Mary’s Cactus Leather Hats
Photo: Simon and Mary
By PAGE Editor
As the fourth generation to join his family’s hat business in Johannesburg, Dean Pozniak has worked to bring sustainable practices to the factory floor. Interested in an alternative to animal leather, his research led him to plant-based leather made from cactus in Mexico.
After some time in development experimenting with this innovative new product, Simon and Mary now launch their first range of hats made from cactus leather: a capsule collection of classic baseball caps and bucket hats in black, beige, and cactus green.
Photo: Simon and Mary
“The material works beautifully with the styles we’ve gone for – the colors and shape of the product,”
Dean says.
“We’ve also introduced a new ingot that features our Simon and Mary hat icon.”
Photo: Simon and Mary
Made from Nopal, a type of cactus and also the name for its pads, cactus leather is a highly sustainable, partially-biodegradable, cruelty-free material made without toxic chemicals, phthalates, or PVC. It requires much less water to farm and manufacture than animal leather does.
Both soft to the touch and durable, the potential to be used in the luxury, automobile, and furniture industries are tremendous, and Simon and Mary are one of the firsts to adopt the material.
Photo: Simon and Mary
The range was shot by long-time collaborator Koos Groenewald of Jana + Koos on a road trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town via the Karoo, where cacti and indigenous succulents grow readily. With a box of hats in the car, he stopped whenever he saw something interesting, jumping fences to use cacti as models on the roads into and out of towns like Graaff-Reinet and Prince Albert. He looked for species that showed a bit of character and could wear the hats well.
Photo: Simon and Mary
The Cactus Leather range is an exciting new direction for Simon and Mary.
“We want to continue working with it and may look into other products away from headwear,”
Dean says.
Photo: Simon and Mary
The range is released with the launch of the long-anticipated Simon and Mary online store where the new pieces, along with the rest of Simon and Mary’s classics, are just a tap away. The online store will launch Wednesday, October 28.
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