Eggplant 'leather' used for sustainable face masks

Introducing: Eggplant ‘leather’ masks

Jordanian chef Omar Sartawi

Location: Amman

transforms eggplant skins

// by salting,

cooking underwater,

and dehydrating //

to create a leather-like sustainable material

(SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) JORDANIAN CHEF, OMAR SARTAWI, SAYING:

"There's an ongoing trend towards sustainable luxury, so I thought why not create leather using the eggplant peel, preserving the eggplant - instead of throwing out these peels, we can recycle them and use them for fashion, for several things. So, I started developing it."

Omar works with Jordanian designers

to turn his material into fashion

Salam Dajani sews the masks

while Nejla Asem adds jewelry

(SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) JORDANIAN JEWELLERY DESIGNER, PRINCESS NEJLA ASEM, SAYING:

"When I received the piece, it already felt complete. It was a beautiful piece - the eggplant with the stitching added by Salam, I felt like it was complete. I just wanted to add a few brass rings, we also experimented with silver and ropes and other things in order to finalize it. Of course, this is a group effort, so we all agreed on how to design it."