Ferragamo expands leather mapping efforts as EU sustainability rules take shape
Italian luxury brand Ferragamo said it can map the country of origin for much of the leather used to make its coveted footwear and handbags, a first step in traceability, according to experts. The announcement comes during a wave of European Union sustainability rules that are increasing pressure on fashion brands to account for materials in their supply chains.
The family-run and publicly traded fashion house has been issuing sustainability reports for over a decade, but the 2025 report, released March 31, is the first that contains figures on material traceability—notably for leather, which experts say is harder to trace than textile fibers such as cotton.
“We have been using leather in a more sustainable way,’’ James Ferragamo, the brand’s chief product officer and grandson of founder Salvatore Ferragamo, tells The Associated Press. “I think it is one of the more sustainable materials from my point of view.”
Most of the tanneries working with the brand “control their water, have fair treatment of the workforce, monitor their supply chain ensuring that they’re buying leather from those who are not deforesting, and taking the right approach also in terms of breeding and animal welfare,” he says.
Traceability in fashion sustainability
Traceability of materials is considered a first and necessary step for the fashion industry, which is facing a new EU framework that will require brands and their suppliers to ensure the items they produce are sustainable from the drawing board to end-of-life disposal. Precise terms are still being defined, and compliance will be phased in over the coming years.
“Traceability is an essential factor, but it’s not sufficient,’’ says Francesca Romana Rinaldi, a sustainability expert and director of the Monitor for Circular Fashion at SDA Bocconi School of Management. “It enables the implementation of sustainability and circularity.”
She adds that any company that is not tracing its materials “doesn’t know their supply chain” and “could also be criticized for greenwashing.”
EU regulations and directives are moving toward full circularity of materials to include measures extending the life cycle of garments, accessories, and footwear through repairs and end-of-life management, including recycling and upcycling, she says.
The EU is also phasing in restrictions on destroying unsold apparel, accessories, and footwear produced by companies with more than 250 employees and more than 40 million euros ($46.8 million) in annual revenues.
From breeding to assembly
The family-run fashion house was founded in 1927 by Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence, after his return from Hollywood, where he had established himself as a shoemaker to the stars with clients including Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. Material scarcity during World War II pushed Ferragamo to experiment with alternatives, substituting wicker for leather and using cork for soles, the younger Ferragamo says.
In keeping with its origins, Ferragamo remains primarily a footwear and leather goods maker. Together, they comprised 86 percent of 2025 sales of 976.5 million euros ($1.1 billion).
Ferragamo launched its initiative on leather traceability with the calf leather used for its Fiamma bag, tracing it from breeding to assembly, the group announced in its 2024 annual report. And in 2025, Ferragamo enlisted tanneries supplying 80 percent of the hides it buys in a project to identify the country of origin of raw materials through supplier declarations. When including textiles such as cotton, silk, and nylon, the company says 81 percent of its materials are certified under third-party sustainability standards.
“Today there is not one single solution, one single technological solution to trace the leather to the birth farm of the cows,’’ says Davide Triacca, Ferragamo’s sustainability director. “We got to that result through a very dedicated and consistent approach, and today we are able to trace more than 80 percent of the entire leather that we supply, and the vast majority of which comes from Europe.”
The EU does not require leather to be traceable. Sustainability experts underscore that approaches based on country-level mapping and supplier declarations do not establish a full chain of custody and instead reflect an early stage of traceability.
Ferragamo previously included a capsule collection with silky textiles made from orange fibers in 2017, one of its first research investments. More recently, it used nylon from castor oil instead of fossil oil for a men’s tote bag, and its Back to Earth collection featured the brand’s trademark Hug handbag treated with vegetable dyes.
“Research keeps on going. It’s something that we’re doing all the time,’’ Ferragamo says. “We’re trying to find different ways of creating different materials. And sometimes the materials that we produce are not ready for market. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t experiment.”
