What faux leather actually is, and how long it lasts

Almost everything sold as faux leather, vegan leather or PU leather in clothing is the same basic sandwich: a thin layer of polyurethane sitting on a woven or knitted textile. It looks like hide because it was pressed with an embossing roller that was carved to look like hide. It behaves nothing like hide, it fails in a different way, and it needs a completely different cleaning routine. None of that is a reason to avoid it. It is a reason to know what you have bought.

What is actually in it

The usual construction is polyurethane, usually shortened to PU, cast or coated onto a backing cloth of polyester or a polyester and cotton mix. The PU is the skin. The cloth is the strength. Everything about how the material behaves comes from that split: the surface is a plastic film a fraction of a millimetre thick, and the thing holding your buttons on is fabric.

You will also meet PVC, which is stiffer, shinier and more common in bags and upholstery than in coats, and bonded leather, which is leather offcuts ground to a pulp, bonded to a backing and topped with PU. Bonded leather is the worst of the three for a garment, because the layer you see is still plastic and the pulp underneath has no fibre length to hold it together.

You can tell faux from real in about five seconds if you can see the reverse. Real leather has a fibrous, suede-like flesh side and a grain that never repeats. Faux leather has a flat knit or weave on the back and a grain pattern that repeats every few centimetres, because a roller only has so much circumference.

How long it lasts

Honestly: it varies enormously, and anyone quoting you a single number is guessing. A coat worn twice a week in a damp climate and hung next to a radiator will look tired far sooner than the same coat worn a dozen times a year in a cool wardrobe. What we can say is the shape of the curve rather than the length of it.

Polyurethane breaks down by hydrolysis, which means it reacts slowly with water, including the water vapour in ordinary air. That clock runs whether or not you wear the garment, and heat and humidity speed it up. This is why a faux leather jacket that sat in a loft for a decade can start flaking the first time it is put on, and why keeping one in a bag in a hot room is worse than wearing it.

The practical consequence is that faux leather is a wearing-out material rather than a wearing-in one. Real leather spends its first year getting better. Faux leather is at its best on day one. Buy it to wear, not to keep.

How it fails, roughly in order

First the gloss goes dull where the garment rubs: the inside of the sleeve against the body, the front of the hip where a long coat folds when you sit, the back of the collar. Then fine crease lines appear at the elbow and at those fold points. Then those creases turn into cracks, because the PU film has stopped being flexible and the fold is now splitting it. Then the film lifts and flakes, and the pale backing cloth shows through.

Two other failures are worth knowing. PVC can turn tacky as its plasticiser migrates out, which feels like the surface is slightly sticky and is not reversible. And hardware can pull out, because a stud or a buckle is anchored in the backing cloth, not in a thick layer of hide.

The thing that catches people out is that none of this can be repaired in any way that lasts. A scratch in leather can be burnished and fed. A scratch in PU exposes the backing and stays exposed. Flexible vinyl fillers exist and will hide a small chip, but they will not match an embossed grain and they will not stop the surrounding film from going the same way.

Cleaning it, which is easier than leather

A damp cloth and a single drop of washing-up liquid will shift almost anything that has not soaked in. Wipe, then wipe again with a cloth wrung out in clean water, then dry with a soft cloth straight away. Test on an inside hem first, particularly on a dark colour, because some finishes transfer a little pigment.

What to keep well away: acetone and nail polish remover, white spirit, alcohol-based hand gel and wipes, bleach, and anything sold as a degreaser. They dissolve or dull the film rather than cleaning it. A patent finish like the one on The Patent Trench is a high-gloss top coat and is even less tolerant: it shows fingerprints, it scuffs where matte PU would only mark, and solvent haze on it is permanent.

Skip leather conditioner, mink oil, saddle soap and dubbin entirely. There is nothing in PU to feed. Oils sit on top, collect dust and leave the surface slightly sticky. No washing machine, no tumble dryer, no hot iron on the face of the material. If you must press a crease out, use a cool iron on the reverse through a cotton cloth, or hold a steamer a good distance away and let gravity do the work.

What you can actually control

Heat and trapped damp are the two things that shorten a faux leather garment's life most, and both are storage problems rather than wearing problems. Hang it on a wide hanger with space either side, in a cupboard away from radiators and away from direct sun. Use a breathable cotton garment bag if you use one at all, never a sealed plastic one, which holds moisture against the surface.

Never fold it for storage and never leave it crushed under other coats. A fold held for months becomes a crack. If a coat like The Belted Trench has a belt, hang the belt separately rather than leaving it buckled tight, because the pressure line it leaves behind is the first place the surface will go.

Two small habits help more than they sound like they should. Wipe the collar and cuffs down every few wears, because body oils and perfume concentrate there. And if the coat gets soaked, dry it at room temperature on a hanger, not over a heat source.

When real leather is the better buy

If you want a coat you will still be wearing in fifteen years, that a cobbler or a leather repairer can patch, and that will mould to your shoulders, buy leather and accept the price. Faux leather cannot do any of those three things, and no amount of care will make it.

Faux leather earns its place on price and on consistency. It costs a fraction as much, it comes in finishes hide does not, and it is uniform, which matters for a sharp silhouette like a trench or a close-fitting jacket. There is also a comfort trade-off worth knowing before you buy: a PU surface does not breathe, so on a mild day you will feel the inside of the sleeve go damp in a way leather does not.

We sell faux leather and we would rather say all of this out loud. The Biker Jacket, which is not on sale yet, is the same material question as the trenches. If you want twenty years, we are not the right shop for that particular coat. If you want the look now and you accept a finite life, it is a reasonable thing to buy.

Questions people actually ask

How long does a faux leather jacket last?

It varies far too much for a single number. The polyurethane surface breaks down slowly on contact with air and water, and heat and damp storage speed that up, so how you store it matters as much as how often you wear it. Treat it as a material that wears out rather than one that wears in.

Can you use leather conditioner on faux leather?

No. There is nothing in polyurethane for a conditioner to feed, so the oils sit on the surface, attract dust and can leave it slightly tacky. Clean it with a damp cloth and a drop of mild detergent instead.

Why is my faux leather coat peeling?

The polyurethane film has lost its flexibility and is splitting away from the cloth backing underneath. It usually starts at fold points: elbows, the front of the hip, the back of the collar. Once it flakes there is no repair that lasts, so the useful work is slowing it down with cool, dry, uncrushed storage.