The vegan visionary reimagining how handbags are made

We caught up with Joey Pringle of Veshin Factory to hear about his vision for a green workplace that is transparent, sustainable and conscious. Pringle, who’s originally from the UK but now based in Costa Rica, studied industrial design. He’s worked all around the world from being a carpenter in Canada to an accessories designer in Australia. But a serendipitous meeting in 2018 with the Chinese businessman Hongliang Yu led to a partnership that culminated in the creation of Veshin Factory. In case you’re wondering: Veshin means vegan (ve) heart (shin) in mandarin. And the name makes a lot of sense as this factory is bringing a plant-based, heart-felt approach into the production and design of goods. The company is built around five pillars: sustainability, radical transparency, plant based culture, giving back and offsetting, meditation and raising consciousness. Here, Joey shares his thoughts on the future of luxury, greenwashing in the sustainability space and the importance of consciousness.

How did Veshin Factory come about? 

In 2018 I was working for a sustainable fashion startup called Tentree (they planted 10 trees for every item made). I travelled to a factory in Southern China who was making our wallets at the time. This was a lux leather goods factory which specialised in high end, premium goods and we were looking to move to a different factory that would be a better fit for the Tentree market and values. It didn’t make sense for this brand to have their product made from a factory from the leather goods industry. So I  went to China and told them I was going to move the business away to another factory. But after visiting them, I quickly saw that this factory was doing things quite differently to any other factory I’d ever seen. I said to myself, we need to keep the business here. Then I spoke to the owner of the factory. After learning about his values he told me he wanted to change from a leather goods owner to not using leather anymore. He had this vision of starting a green factory. 

Sounds like a very serendipitous but unexpected kind of meeting? 

Yes at this point my values were very driven by sustainability and the planet. When I heard Hongliang Yu’s vision there was a lightbulb moment. What happened next is history. Over the course of the following year Veshin Factory was born. The stars had aligned. I quit my job in Canada and took up the position he offered me. And then COVID hit. 

How did that affect the business? 

I meditate twice a day and am very in touch with the universe. I said to myself what’s happening with Covid is one of the biggest blessings the planet has ever experienced. When it comes to the fashion industry - it gave me time to press the pause button and build back better. We saw this as a great opportunity to launch the company - so instead we launched the new factory model in May 2020 (instead of Oct). Basically what we did is we launched a website, I started talking about what the vision was. We already had a factory in Guangzhou and what we are doing is we are basically transitioning that model from leather goods into a sustainable vehicle. 

As a vegan, how do you begin to move an existing operation which manufactures leather goods into a green one? 

We can either shut down the leather goods factory right now and start from scratch. Or we can start slowly and transition what we have. For us, the latter is more realistic. The leather goods side of things isn’t the solution which is why we are transitioning. But we want to transition in a way that’s more affordable and with covid many factories have shut down. So, for us, we are using our leather goods factory as a platform and a financial vehicle to transition. Yeah, the day to day is a catch 22 because we are driven by plant based philosophies but our leather goods business is keeping the lights on. This is the kind of catch 22 as a vegan business owner that I am dealing with. 

What about the challenges around greenwashing? Some materials that are vegan, for example, aren’t that sustainable? 

Rome wasn’t built in a day and for me the most important thing is honesty and transparency at the forefront of a business. If you operate with fear, this is where greenwashing comes in because you’re scared about the media taking you apart. Sustainability is a loaded subject. The word means nothing. What we are seeing right now is this huge debate with leather and plant-based leather alternatives. What we have right now is far from the solution. But to me, the key is consciousness and progressiveness. Providing you operate at the highest rate of consciousness in your business, you’re going to make the best and most progressive moves. 

It’s tricky because the transition right now is hard. The solutions that we are working with now are things like cactus leather, pinatex, apple leathers. All of these materials have an element of plastic in their composition. And plastic in the composition isn’t ideal when you look at the plastic pollution issue, it’s very negative. But when you weigh that up against leather, plastic will always come out on top. I’m not talking about single use plastic. You’re not going to see a random cactus leather bag floating in the ocean. 

Some leather brands say we’re just using a bi-product of the food industry? 

Sure they can say that but ultimately we shouldn’t be eating animals in the first place. There are different ways of measuring sustainability. We need these materials to transition. We need a starting point. We’re not the brand. We are just the vehicle to get it made at a high end level so we put a lot of focus on cactus leather and other leather alternatives to begin with because they are the only solutions that are available right now. I know there is a lot of PU (polyurethane) in microfibre. We avoid pushing those materials because I know for a fact it’s just complete and utter shit. We don’t use them. It’s just 100% plastic with the term vegan leather slapped on it. We’re pushing for innovation of materials.  

Is the fashion industry ready to change? 

2022 will be a good year because we are seeing more options coming out that are going to reduce plastic content or they are becoming plastic free. But it’s super slow. There is a lot of investment going on in this industry but the level of testing is rigorous. Luxury fashion houses know that leather isn’t the solution but they also know that it is making them money and a long lasting product. So to change overnight, they are very cautious.

Will the transition ever happen if profit is the main metric? 

You need to care about this. I used to get upset by things like seeing companies coming out and backing mushroom leather and a week before they’re opening up one of the biggest crocodile farms in the northern territory of Australia. But now I come at it from a position of love. You have to love and support a decision to use mushroom leather. It’s a quick win, even if a brand’s values and philosophy isn’t fully in place, you still have to celebrate the fact that they’ve made that decision. We can’t shame them for it. Hopefully they can empower someone else to start using these materials too. Ultimately the consumer will decide which companies stay alive. You’d like to think, the consumer would start to support companies who are legit with their values 

But greenwashing is extremely challenging to get around as a consumer

If you’re not in the game and don’t understand the industry, yes it’s a challenge. As a normal everyday shopper it’s hard to understand if something has being greenwashed or not. Big change starts small. Hopefully the universe will figure out what is the best.

So what are your biggest challenges? 

Apart from not having the perfect solution just yet. For us to transition we are relying on these brands to change. Our current leather goods business is around 5 million a year so we can go up to 200,000 pieces a year. We want to be able to transition that into plant based leather but to give that scale we need to start seeing some of those larger names supporting plant-based alternatives. What Stella McCartney and Adidas are doing with mycelium (mushroom leather) with BoltThreads is encouraging and when a big mushroom collection comes out, the rest are going to go, ok now is the time to do it.  On top of that, radical transparency is a huge part of the company. I want to go above and beyond audit culture. And we want to make the factory building carbon neutral. But we can’t do that right now. 

Is the concept of luxury fashion changing? Are people’s perceptions around status evolving, for example? 

We are starting to see some change where luxury is being redefined. You are paying more because you understand who is behind making that product and this is where we start tapping into the circular economy and into blockchain and this is what we are trying to do with the factory. The world doesn’t need more bags right now. The world needs products to stay in circulation. Manufacturing isn’t the key to sustainability. The key for this industry becoming sustainable is to stop making things. 

Can you explain what you mean by that? 

The factory model has traditionally always been linear. Always making things, sending it out, making things and sending it out. How can we work with the circular economy to ensure that the product is staying in circulation. The key with luxury is because the product is built to last a long time, instead of it being bought once, and staying in someone's closet, it can be resold through so many different types of business models where it can stay in circulation. By using a blockchain platform that we are trying to do right now. You can start to see who’s made the product and by providing that level of transparency, the product will be a bit more expensive but the consumer will be happier knowing that the social wellbeing of the worker is fundamental. 

How does the world of instant gratification and social media fit with your vision? 

It all starts with the consumer. It is going to change eventually. This is why it all comes back to meditation and consciousness. For us, it doesn’t start with brands or with governments. It starts with global consciousness. The only way to do that is for human beings to go within themselves and start loving themselves more. Once you start loving yourself more, you start making better decisions in your life. You stop buying shit to make you happy. 

Some people will disagree with such a focus on the consumer

Sure, regulations and all of that can be done. But for this planet to change, people need to start loving themselves. At the end of the day, for fashion to change it all starts with the consumer. If any factory wants to copy us, they can. If all other factories started copying what Veshin is doing and we went bankrupt, that’s my mission complete. Success for us would be ceasing to need to exist anymore.

If you’d like to learn more about Veshin, check out their website.