Artificial Leather Nonwovens Directory

Built on a Nonwoven Base

A natural hide is a tangle of collagen fibres, and the best artificial leathers copy that architecture rather than its chemistry. The base is typically a dense nonwoven — needle-punched, spunlaced or wet-laid — increasingly made from sea-island microfibres that are split or dissolved down to fibres finer than silk. That fibrous base gives the finished material its tear strength, its drape and the suede-like nap that a simple coated fabric cannot imitate.

Polyurethane does the rest of the work. In the coagulation process the base is saturated with a PU solution and immersed in water, which sets the resin as a microporous sponge locked through the fibres; a surface film, embossing and dyeing then produce smooth grain leathers, while buffing the coagulated base alone produces suede types. Cheaper constructions coat PU or PVC directly onto a simpler base or fabric, trading some hand-feel for price and abrasion resistance.

Where Artificial Leather Is Used

Footwear is the largest fashion market: microfibre nonwoven leathers give shoe uppers a consistent quality no hide supply can match, with no scars, no thickness variation and cutting yields a tannery cannot offer. Beyond shoes, the material serves bags, gloves, garments, upholstery, automotive interiors, bookbinding and sports goods — anywhere a leather look must survive water, sweat, cleaning or hard wear better than skin does.

The listings below are the makers and suppliers this section carries under artificial leather. They range from diversified groups such as Achilles Corporation of Japan — whose record reaches from its 1947 founding in Tokyo into footwear, plastics and industrial materials — to specialist microfibre producers and regional coating companies. Each listing is carried with the country and description its original entry stated, so the directory reads as the trade presented itself.

Judging Quality in Synthetic Leather

Judge an artificial leather the way you would a hide: flex it repeatedly and watch for cracking or whitening, rub the surface wet and dry for colour transfer, tear and stitch a seam allowance, and check the reverse — a true microfibre base looks and feels like suede, while a plain woven backing signals a simpler coated construction. Hydrolysis resistance matters for anything that will live in humidity: a PU that powders after two damp years is a warranty claim, not a material.

Specify by construction, not by the word leather: base type and fibre, coating system, thickness, and the performance tests the finished material must pass for peeling, flexing and abrasion. The producers below can supply those constructions at different price points; the neighbouring nonwoven directories — coating and laminating, composites, and the machinery pages — cover the processes and equipment behind them.

Environmental and Care Questions

Artificial leather answers the care questions that trouble natural hide: it does not crack from dryness, stain unevenly from water, or need feeding with conditioners, and it wipes clean with mild soap. That durability is why it dominates in contract upholstery, marine and medical seating, where cleaning chemicals would destroy a hide. Against that, end-of-life questions are real — a PU-coated microfibre is a composite that recycling streams handle poorly — and producers increasingly offer water-based PU systems and recycled-fibre bases in response.

For the wearer, the honest summary is horses for courses: top microfibre artificial leathers now outlast mid-grade hides in abrasion and hydrolysis testing, while remaining cheaper and perfectly consistent; natural leather keeps an ageing character and a repair culture that synthetics do not. The makers below span that whole honest range, from fashion suedes to heavy contract grades, and their descriptions state construction and market plainly enough to shortlist from.

Artificial Leather Makers Listed Here

78 companies and organisations are listed in this directory, carried from the original Apparel Search listing with each company's country and description as originally stated. Follow a name to the company's own website.