BSF Enterprise shares jumped on Tuesday after it unveiled what it calls the world’s first handbag made from lab-grown T-Rex Leather, now on display at the Art Zoo Museum in Amsterdam until 10 May.
The piece, designed by techwear label Enfin Levé, is a proof of concept for the company’s subsidiary, Lab-Grown Leather Ltd, which used AI-driven modelling to reconstruct collagen sequences from fossilised T. rex DNA before cultivating the material through its proprietary tissue-engineering platform.
The display at the Art Zoo Museum will be followed by the implementation of a commercial strategy that will make the technology available to fashion brands and other applications.
BSF is targeting three markets: luxury fashion, where it plans to make T-Rex Leather available to premium brands and designers; automotive interiors, where it sees long-term demand for high-performance, slaughter-free materials; and the broader bio-based materials space.
The company is positioning its wider Elemental Leather™ range to target what it describes as a combined $80bn addressable market across luxury leather and biomaterials.
Following the Amsterdam exhibition, the one-off handbag will be auctioned through a major international auction house later this year, with details still to be confirmed.
Dr Che Connon, CEO of BSF, said: “The evening last Thursday we revealed an object that represents the pinnacle of artisanal luxury yet its origin story belongs in a deep-tech biotechnology seminar. At LGL we are not merely trying to engineer a greener alternative to cow hide but are looking to fundamentally redefine the material basis of luxury itself. It’s not an Alternative but a new generation of Material. It’s not a compromise, its a technological upgrade. Our new T-Rex Leather brand is shifting the narrative from Natural heritage to Biotech Exclusivity”
BSF Enterprise shares were 62% higher at the time of writing on Tuesday.