Imagine if high-end leather wasn't sourced from animals, but instead came from an animal that vanished 68 million years ago?
Euronews Culture spoke with Dimitri Guerassimov, the Global Chief Creative Officer at VML, during this year's event. Cannes Lions The International Festival of Creativity saw the T-Rex Leather team win four significant prizes, featuring Gold, Silver, and Bronze Lions in areas such as public relations, innovation, and business-to-business marketing.
T-Rex Leather is an innovative material initiative pioneered globally by Lab-Grown Leather Ltd, working alongside VML and various collaborators. It employs recreated dinosaur collagen combined with cutting-edge bioengineering techniques to produce a laboratory-made substitute for traditional leather.
The initial product made from the material is an exclusive high-end purse.
We discussed with Dimitri the concept underlying the project, the involvement of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology in recreating ancient proteins, and the reasons the group thinks this advancement might shape the future of design.
Euronews Culture: T Tell us about this T-Rex leather. It seems quite fascinating.
Dimitri Guerassimov: We were able to produce leather derived from T-Rex collagen, extracted from the fossils of the first T-Rex discovered in Montana. This was an extended effort, taking approximately two years, which combined artificial intelligence with genetic engineering techniques to restore it since we possessed certain data but also lacked parts of the complete picture. We had to reconstruct the absent details.
Collagen gives rise to lab-created leather, and we brought this concept to life with a bag unveiled in Amsterdam last April.
Wow. Everything seems extremely intriguing and reminiscent of Jurassic Park. What inspired this creation? And among all the possibilities, why choose a handbag?
I suppose, we're in the business of selling products, yet we also aim to maintain awareness. Occasionally, individual conflicts arise, and VML, naturally within WPP, often takes varied perspectives when addressing various issues and sectors, striving for more environmentally friendly solutions and similar initiatives.
At this point, an opportunity emerged since the lab-made leather sector is encountering difficulties in expanding due to its comparison with traditional cowhide and being perceived as inferior rather than a distinct product. Therefore, ee chose to develop a type of leather entirely separate from such comparisons, standing independently, enhanced through scientific innovation on one hand and narrative on the other.
Therefore, we essentially developed an exclusive type of leather compared to a secondary product. In fact, the company responsible for producing it, Lab-Grown Leather, is now fully transitioning to T-Rex Leather, discontinuing all other projects since, following our work, the potential list of clients and partnerships has become extremely extensive. They will concentrate solely on this area. We plan to expand significantly, and it’s set to be a major development. Hence, we’re very pleased with this outcome.
What part did artificial intelligence play in this process?
In fact, it's extremely important since it fundamentally involves data-based innovation. Rebuilding the lost portions of collagen requires the use of artificial intelligence. There are additional aspects above this that I am not competent enough to elaborate on, but one component includes AI making educated guesses about the missing elements and reconstructing them in a manner as close as possible to their original form.
This was the primary obstacle – otherwise it would not have been feasible. In fact, this concept originated much earlier than this year. At that time, artificial intelligence had not advanced enough for us to execute it effectively, so we worked on a different project in the interim. Now, ultimately, we have managed to launch it.
Everyone, naturally, is currently dealing with the issue—some view it as a danger—of artificial intelligence. As someone who creates content, you're directly impacted by this development. In your daily work, how has this influenced your activities?
Many of the technologies referred to as AI are essentially predictive systems that excel at working with pre-existing data. It’s similar to a search engine combined with additional features. What it definitely cannot substitute is the work that we, as creators, carry out. In fact, it serves as a useful tool, making tasks much easier. Numerous possibilities can be explored and applied in ways that enhance our efforts, instead of being perceived as adversaries or something negative.
At this point, it remains more of an intriguing device as we await understanding its boundaries. For the time being, people are still human beings, and it’s wonderful to have humans generating material for others. I stand by that belief. Perhaps it's optimistic hope, but so far, I haven’t noticed any indications to the opposite.