A Handbag Made of T. Rex Leather? It's Up for Sale

A handbag in Amsterdam is turning heads for what it claims to be made of: lab-grown "T. rex leather." Scientists and designers say they used tiny protein fragments reportedly extracted from Tyrannosaurus rex fossils in the US, inserted them into animal cells to grow collagen, and then processed that into leather, reports Reuters. The result, on display under a T. rex replica at Amsterdam's Art Zoo museum until May 11, is set to be auctioned with a starting price of more than $500,000, per USA Today.

The project comes from genomic engineering firm Organoid, creative agency VML, and Lab-Grown Leather Ltd., whose CEO calls it not just an eco-friendlier alternative, but a "technological upgrade." Some paleontologists question the marketing, noting that any surviving dinosaur collagen exists only in fragmentary form inside bones, not skin, and can't be used to recreate authentic T. rex hide. One expert—University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz Jr.—says the proteins alone wouldn't replicate the structure that gives real leather its qualities. Organoid's CEO counters that criticism is part of science—and argues this may be as close as anyone gets to a T. rex accessory.