Lab-Grown T-Rex leather turns into handbag
Techwear label Enfin Levé debuts a handbag made from lab-grown T-Rex leather and collagen collected from fossilized dinosaur bone fragments. On public display at Art Zoo Museum in Amsterdam, the accessory is positioned beside a cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex specimen on loan from Naturalis Biodiversity Center. The handbag comes to life using the collagen of a specimen. In the standard production, it comes from the hides of cattle, sheep, or other animals after slaughter, but in the Lab-Grown T-Rex Leather, the collagen sequence was reconstructed from fossilized T-rex bone fragments. The original protein recovered from those fossils were incomplete, meaning that fossilization over 68 million years leaves gaps in the biological record, so the scientists at The Organoid Company used computational biology and AI modelling to predict and fill in the missing genetic data.
The result was a complete, synthesized collagen blueprint for the species. That synthesized DNA was then inserted into a carrier cell line, and those cells were cultivated at scale using the Lab-Grown Leather’s process called Advanced Tissue Engineering Platform. It uses a scaffold-free approach, which, instead of growing cells onto an existing structure, are cultivated in conditions that allow them to build their own extracellular matrix from scratch. The matrix they produce is identical to the collagen found in conventional animal leather, so in this case, the finished material is biodegradable, repairable, and produced without chromium-based tanning chemicals, the company says.
all images courtesy of VML
Technwear label Enfin Levé designs the accessory
After the production of the Lab-Grown T-Rex leather handbag ran through the cell-cultivated leather materials process, it is passed to Enfin Levé for design and fabrication. Founder Michal Hadas says that the design process for the accessory begins with he and the team understanding where the T-Rex leather resists stress, how it holds tension, and how its surface responds to construction techniques. The resulting bag follows that logic, and the lead designer describes the material as having a character unlike any leather Enfin Levé has previously worked with, adding that the design process involved ‘letting the material define the object.’
The lab-grown T-Rex leather handbag is designed by Michal Hadas, founder of Warsaw-born techwear label Enfin Levé, and produced through a collaboration between creative agency VML, genomic engineering company, The Organoid Company, and Lab-Grown Leather Ltd. The accessory is set to remain on display at Art Zoo for six weeks starting April 2nd, 2026. After the exhibition closes, the company says it is expected to be auctioned.
Techwear label Enfin Levé debuts a handbag made from Lab-Grown T-Rex Leather
the collagen sequence was reconstructed from fossilized T-rex bone fragments
the matrix produced is identical to the collagen found in conventional animal leather
the accessory is on public display at Art Zoo Museum in Amsterdam
project info:
material: T-Rex Leather
companies: Enfin Levé, VML, The Organoid Company, Lab-Grown Leather Ltd. | @enfinleve, @vml_global
museum: Art Zoom Museum
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