This Cow Named Angel Just Changed the Fashion Industry Forever
Cultivated Biomaterials today announced one of the best Kickstarter campaigns to back in 2025: Angelry jewelry featuring the world’s first cruelty-free luxury jewelry made from lab-grown leather. The Kickstarter campaign launches September 9 with an ambitious funding target and plans to disrupt the sustainable fashion industry. From jewelry and purses to belts and boots, Cultivated Biomaterials envisions creating it all without harming a single animal.
“Our cultivated leather jewelry, Angelry, is in essence a biological gemstone,” says Cultivated Biomaterials Founder and biomedical engineer George Engelmayr. “This is more than just a fashion statement. This is a symbol of progress. Progress for animal welfare, progress for sustainability, and progress for our planet. Through this Kickstarter campaign, we are creating a future where fashion doesn’t cost an animal its life.”
Angelry jewelry is a one-of-a-kind scientific breakthrough, made from lab-grown leather that is rarer than diamonds. The leather is grown from the skin cells of Angel, a rescued Black Angus cow who lives peacefully at the picturesque Sweet Farm animal sanctuary in upstate New York. A one-time skin sample, smaller than the size of a pea, collected during a routine health checkup at Cornell University enabled Engelmayr to grow the cells needed to produce pieces of cultivated leather using an entirely plant-based process of scaffolding and vegetable tanning. The hand-cut leather is inlaid in bezels and topped off with a glass cabochon to create the luxury jewelry pieces. The glass covering offers a subtle magnifying effect, revealing the cultivated leather’s natural texture and color.
The First Cow to See Her Own Leather
While a handful of companies around the world are working feverishly to produce and optimize cultivated leather, Engelmayr is the only one who has figured out how to create it from a living, breathing cow. In an extraordinary moment, Engelmayr took a pouch made from Angel’s cultivated leather with him on a recent visit to Sweet Farm for the bovine to inspect, marking the first time in history that a cow has produced leather and lived to see it.
“We’re proving that cruelty-free luxury goods don’t require animal suffering,” said Engelmayr, who previously worked at cultivated meat companies Mission Barns and UPSIDE Foods. “Angel’s cells create luxury cultivated leather while she continues living and being cared for at a beautiful animal sanctuary.”
Best Kickstarter Campaigns: The Rarest Jewelry Investment Opportunity
This rare jewelry opportunity represents one of the best Kickstarter campaigns to back because of its unprecedented scarcity. Each piece comes from one source: Angel’s cells growing in a North Carolina laboratory. This biological limitation makes these exceptionally rare cruelty-free luxury goods some of the scarcest materials on Earth – there’s only one Angel, making every piece irreplaceable.
How It Works
The process starts with a small sample of Angel’s harmlessly collected skin cells, which Engelmayr grows on plant-based scaffolds made from materials like kapok tree fibers. The cells multiply in bioreactors using animal-free nutrients developed with UK company Multus Biotechnology.
The resulting leather sheets are tanned using natural vegetable processes – no toxic chemicals or synthetic plastics. Some studies estimate that cultivated leather processes are generally expected to use 80% less water, generate 90% fewer emissions, and produce 95% less waste than conventional leather production.
Traditional leather production is facing increased scrutiny over environmental and ethical issues. A square meter of conventional leather generates 110kg of CO2 and involves toxic tanning chemicals, deforestation, and significant water use.
Plant-based leather alternatives often use petroleum-based plastics that take centuries to decompose. In comparison, Engelmayr’s lab-grown cultivated leather offers authentic animal leather without sacrificing the animal – what the company calls innovation born of compassion.
Engelmayr brings 25 years of tissue engineering experience, including work growing heart valves and cardiac muscle for medical applications. “The same principles that help us grow tissues for heart surgery apply to growing leather,” he explains.
The World’s Rarest Cruelty-Free Luxury Goods: The Angelry Collection
The jewelry line includes earrings, necklaces, and luxury accessories designed to showcase the cultivated leather’s unique properties. Each piece serves as both fashion accessory and proof that cruelty-free luxury accessories are possible.
Cultivated Biomaterials chose jewelry as its first market because it requires smaller quantities of material than bags or shoes, allowing them to perfect the luxury cultivated leather technology before scaling up.
Successful Kickstarter Campaign Strategy
The unique technology and potential for scaling up to produce a cruelty-free leather industry make this one of the most exciting Kickstarter campaigns of 2025, reflecting both the technology’s potential and the material’s rarity. Rather than seeking traditional venture capital, Cultivated Biomaterials is betting on this jewelry investment opportunity through direct consumer backing.
“This successful Kickstarter connects us with people who understand they’re backing one of the most meaningful Kickstarter campaigns – an opportunity to own something that’s never existed on planet Earth before,” Engelmayr noted. “Like lab-grown diamonds disrupted traditional jewelry, our exceptionally rare, cruelty-free luxury jewels create an entirely new category. The difference is our material can’t be commoditized – there’s only one Angel, making each piece impossibly rare.”
Next Steps
Cultivated Biomaterials currently produces leather by hand at laboratory scale, sufficient for jewelry production. The company plans to explore fashion partnerships and expand into other luxury goods categories after the Kickstarter campaign.
Angelry prototypes will be displayed at the UC Davis iCAMP25 Summit, and Engelmayr will also present at MIT’s Langer Lab seminar September 23.
The campaign kicks off September 9, with jewelry pieces available as backer rewards.
