evidence: Almost all "vegan" leathers are made by bonding liquid plastics onto a fabric or paper backing stamped with a leatherlike texture. The resulting material tends to feel spongy or thin, look wrinkly, have a plasticky sheen, or smell like other, less glamorous plastic products. In most cases, these materials also break down more quickly. Whereas leather goods can be repeatedly cleaned and repaired, according to Vincent Rao Jr., who works at Vince’s Village Cobbler in New York City, non-animal leathers mostly just crack, split, peel, or fray. Rao’s family’s business maintains a popular Instagram account where it demonstrates just how effectively leather can be restored, even if it seems totally trashed. Plastics, Rao told me, don’t really reshape or break in—eventually, they just come apart in some way. At that point, he said, vegan leather can be much harder, and sometimes impossible, to revive. "If you’re dealing with something like polyurethane, when you apply any cleaning agent or chemical to break down dirt and grime, it tends to destroy the material," Rao said.