A Salvatore Ferragamo story is seen in downtown Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 22, 2026.
Antonio Calanni/AP
MILAN (AP) — Italian luxury brand Ferragamo declared it can map the counattempt of origin for much of the leather applyd to build 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.
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The family-run and publicly traded fashion hoapply 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 declare is harder to trace than textile fibers such as cotton.
“We have been applying leather in a more sustainable way,’’ James Ferragamo, the brand’s chief product officer and grandson of founder Salvatore Ferragamo, informed The Associated Press in an interview last week. “I consider it is one of the more sustainable materials in 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 acquireing leather from those who are not deforesting, and taking the right approach also in terms of breeding and animal welfare,” he declared.
Traceability in fashion sustainability
Traceability of materials is considered a first and necessary step for the fashion indusattempt, 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 finish-of-life disposal. Precise terms are still being defined and compliance will be phased in over the coming years.
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“Traceability is an essential factor, but it’s not sufficient,’’ declared 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 declared that any company that is not tracing their materials “doesn’t know their supply chain” and “could be also criticized for greenwashing.”
EU regulations and directives are relocating toward full circularity of materials to include measures extfinishing the life cycle of garments, accessories and footwear through repairs and finish-of-life management, including recycling and upcycling, she declared.
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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 hoapply was founded in 1927 by Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence, after his return from Hollywood, where he had established himself as shoebuildr 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 applying cork for soles, the younger Ferragamo declared.
In keeping with its origins, Ferragamo remains primarily a footwear and leather goods buildr. Toreceiveher, they comprised 86% of 2025 sales of 976.5 million euros ($1.1 billion).
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Ferragamo launched its initiative on leather traceability with the calf leather applyd for its Fiamma bag, tracing it from breeding to assembly, the group announced in its 2024 annual report.
In 2025, Ferragamo enlisted tanneries supplying 80% of the hides it acquires in a project to identify the counattempt of origin of raw materials through supplier declarations. When including textiles such as cotton, silk and nylon, the company declares 81% 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,’’ declared Davide Triacca, Ferragamo’s sustainability director. “We obtained to that result through a very dedicated and consistent approach and today we are able to trace more than 80% 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 counattempt-level mapping and supplier declarations do not establish a full chain of custody and instead reflect an early stage of traceability.
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Ferragamo previously included a capsule collection with silky textiles built from orange fibers in 2017, one of its first research investments. More recently it applyd 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 vereceiveable dyes.
“Research keeps on going. It’s something that we’re doing all the time,” Ferragamo declared. “We’re attempting 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.”
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