Spot the difference: Our faux leather collections

High quality faux leathers have been a part of the Agua story for decades. Established customers may already know that Agua was a healthcare supplier specialising in PPE for decades before pivoting to high-performance contract fabrics in the early noughties. True to this narrative, when our MD Suzanne made the decision to move into fabrics, faux leathers and technical vinyls were among the first materials we worked on.

For frontline healthcare, hospitality and high-traffic environments at risk of spillages, we always recommend using faux leather. Our collections have been painstakingly developed to mimic the finest natural leathers; both in terms of appearance, handle and softness, but are more practical and considerably less expensive per metre.

As with all Agua fabrics, our faux leathers are anti-microbial and fire-retardant. Moreover, they are highly stain-resistant and water-resistant too, which makes them easy to wipe down, disinfect and maintain in either a healthcare or hospitality setting. In fact, Agua has supplied the NHS with vinyl upholstery fabrics for years. At the start of the UK’s first COVID-19 lockdown in March 2019, we supplied a huge quantity of our staple Paint Pot collection (see below) for use on furniture in the Nightingale Hospital wards set up throughout the UK – a project that we hope serves as compelling evidence of our vinyl fabrics’ practicality.

Alongside their performance, the aesthetic design of our vinyl fabrics is important too. In decades past, vinyl fabrics had a poor reputation in the style stakes, but we can say with confidence that our vinyls are every bit as sophisticated as our soft fabrics. 

We offer several different ranges, the most popular of which is Parody Linen. A faux leather designed to look like soft woven linen, this is an innovative and highly practical alternative to a woven upholstery fabric. We also offer a further range of different faux fabrics – from lookalike denim twills to worsted herringbones – in our Parody collection too.

We also offer several fabrics designed with a mixture of prints and grains to mimic natural leather. These include our Taurus collection with its subtle surface texture, our newly-revamped Lunar collection, which features some playful tonal prints and pebble grain finishes, and our UV-resistant Aries collection, designed for outdoor upholstery use.

Our Fusion collection is another clever alternative, with a diamond cross-hatch emboss that mimics quilted leather – we designed this range with hotel and restaurant banquette seating in mind. As with all our other vinyls, this mirrors leather perfectly while proving far easier to maintain.

In recent years, we’ve worked hard to develop faux leathers with additional specialist characteristics too. Our Stretch collection comes with a four-way stretch (as the name suggests), perfect for upholstering the trickiest of designs. Then there’s Tierra Eco, a 33 per cent plant-based faux leather. This collection is the first of its kind in the UK, designed to offer a more sustainable option to the commercial interiors market.

We even have a breathable faux leather, Furnisoft Breathable; a polyurethane that offers a cost-effective and durable alternative to the real thing – and which is every bit as comfortable to sit on over extended periods of time.

A word on the technicalities too. All our faux leathers are REACH compliant and phthalate free. They also meet Oeko-Tex standards are certified free of harmful chemicals. We also hold a healthy stock position within the UK on all our fabrics, and can ship significant quantities immediately.

To request a sample or discuss an order, reach out to our sales team via info@aguafabrics.com