Audi’s Interior Designer Now Makes Handbags

Vicki von Holzhausen, longtime interior designer for Audi and Mercedes-Benz, now creates handbags using sustainable materials like those in cars.

In a profile for Fast Company, von Holzhausen said she creates handbags using faux leather made from recycled water bottles. Of courses, Audi trims its cars in a similar material — as do Ford and Nissan.

Technic-Leather 2.0, the material she created, is 100% biodegradable, and should decompose in just five years. It’s made possible by injecting an organic additive into the material’s chemical formulation. The additive attracts a natural microbe that breaks down plastic.

For now, von Holzhausen is only using the material in her eponymous brand of handbags. But her goal is to sell it to other fashion companies, and maybe even automakers.

After all, she’s still linked to the auto industry. Her husband, Franz Von Holzhausen, is chief designer at Tesla.

To read the full profile, see: “How a former Audi designer is taking on fashion’s leather addiction”