Herman Miller now offers plant-based leather on its iconic lounge chair

Can you finally feel guilt-free about buying an iconic piece of furniture design that starts at $6,395? For the first time in 68 years, Herman Miller’s Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman are being offered with a plant-based upholstery option that looks and feels like leather, but is primarily made from bamboo.

The plant-based fabric, called Banbū, was developed by von Holzhausen and first launched back in 2020 as a durable alternative to both leather derived from animals and vegan leathers made using plastic-based materials like polyurethane. Banbū is made by chopping up bamboo and extracting fibers that are spun into a yarn that can be woven into fabrics. Those fabrics are then treated with a plant-based topcoat sealant, according to von Holzhausen’s website. The company describes Banbū as being “buttery-soft and smooth as lambskin,” and claims the material is one third the weight of cow leather while also taking less than 250 days to biodegrade in a landfill.

Bamboo plants are highly renewable, growing quickly without the need for fertilizers or irrigation, allowing the plant to be harvested sustainably without deforestation. Herman Miller claims the plant-based leather reduces the chair’s carbon footprint by “up to 35 percent,” but von Holzhausen hasn’t shared specifics on how it makes Banbū, including the environmental impacts of breaking down the bamboo and what other materials may be used in the manufacturing process.

Using bamboo to make pseudo-leather might have a smaller carbon footprint than using cows, but the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman still feature complicated designs with layers of wood veneers glued together and molded into shape using presses applying heat and pressure.

If you want to keep the environmental impact of your furniture in mind but still want a Herman Miller in your home, an alternative is the company’s Eames Molded Plastic Armchair. Although they use a similar manufacturing process involving heat, the molded seats are made using 100 percent post-industrial recycled plastic instead of lumber or bamboo, allowing them to be recycled again when you’re ready to redecorate. (Although they aren’t quite as lounge-able.)