This Company Is Marketing Bags Made From ’T. Rex Leather’

There was a time when the Tyrannosaurus rex was the apex predator of Earth. Today, its once-lofty status has been so degraded that even in extinction, it’s being eyed as the next hot fashion accessory. That’s because the king of the dinosaurs may soon be reduced to clutches and tote bags.

A team of U.K. researchers and bioengineers is trying to grow leather using the collagen of the long-extinct T. rex. The goal is to create biodegradable, sustainable, and “ethically sound” dino-leather that looks like cowhide but comes with way bigger ethical quandaries.

Leading the effort is Professor Che Connon of Newcastle University, working alongside Lab-Grown Leather, a biotech company that wants to move into the fashion space. The company says it’s meddling with the natural forces of life would have a practical application as purses, car seats, and I guess eventually, some limited edition Supreme-labeled dinosaur merch.

Is This Company Actually Making Bags Made of T-Rex Leather?

And why? The global leather market is worth half a trillion dollars and is projected to hit $855 billion by 2032. If you’re wondering why we’re bringing back T. Rexes just to carry our car keys in them, the answer can be found in the eyes of a biotech CEO whose pupils have been replaced with large shimmering gold dollar signs.

For every John Hammond, there is an Ian Malcolm, which is to say that not everyone’s buying into the dino leather idea. Skeptics like Professor Tom Ellis of Imperial College London say this whole idea is “very far-fetched.” He went on to explain that our understanding of T. Rex DNA is more science fiction than science fact and that the collagen produced from the project would probably have more in common with cow or chicken collagen than T. Rex collagen.

My concern here isn’t so much about the ethical nature of creating designer purses out of dinosaur skin, but more about how it seems prehistoric creatures are being used as a marketing gimmick.

You might’ve heard about Colossal Biosciences announcing that they’ve brought back all sorts of prehistoric creatures like dire wolves. You might’ve also heard that those creatures aren’t actually real Jurassic Park-style clones of extinct animals but rather a kind of weird mixtape version of these creatures wherein modern-day animals are being genetically modified to be granted a handful of traits from extinct animals.

They didn’t bring back a woolly mammoth as much as they gave a mouse woolly mammoth-like hair by flipping a genetic switch, for instance.

There’s definitely some interesting, ethically dubious science going on, but it seems like it’s more of a marketing gimmick that’s playing into people’s hopes and/or fears of a real-life Jurassic Park.

Is Lab-Grown Leather using the T. Rex’s good name to get people talking about the brand? Or are they actually going to make a purse made of leather that is similar to that of a T. Rex’s skin? It ultimately doesn’t matter, because in the time it took me to type all this, the company’s researchers set a world record for the most emphatic jerk-off hand motion ever attempted, then went right back to work trying to make all the money in the world.