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It's a expensive leather replacement material (archive)
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Posted by No steering wheel on March 25, 2002 at 05:21:34:

In Reply to: What is "Alcantara" please? posted by Randy '83 733i Des Moines, Iowa on March 24, 2002 at 21:42:36:

It basically has the look of natural leather.
Like the back of smooth leather, could it be you call it suade or so, (german=Wildleder).
Often used for shoes and some type of "Lederhosen".
First saw it used in cloth, mainly coats in the late 70's, it can be died to any colour, and I think its washable.
Brilliant stuff according to the "female species".
More expensive than leather and without the drawbacks.
These days used a lot for seating furninshing of all kind.
A bit of a fashion material amongst the "German Schikeria" (Old Yuppies).
Defenately an "In" material, at least 5 years back and by the sound of it still.
I supose they have used it for cloths in the 70s and 80's, for sofas in the 80's and 90's, now in the 90's and 00's they use it in cars.
Heavens now were next. Underwear or coffin linning?
I am not sure but I think it's an Italian invention.
Finally: The material is embossed like leather and smells like leather.
It's what I can remember, my friend in Berlin has a bue couch, quite nice material.
I like it, it's nice. I am sure your local furniture shop has some. Try it.
Otherwise I believe alcantara does change colour when exposed to long spells of sunlight. So no improvement here. That is basically down the colour pigments. There don'tappear to be sunshine proof colour pigments in existance.
But what I remember because alcantara is an artificial material the colour fading is very even and therefore should more be seen as a colour change then a colour fade.
I have enclosed an URL. Just took a wild guess and presto there was a website.
My suggestion of it being italian appears to be right, but otherwise I have not checked my details on the material I told you.
Everything was hearsay & experience from memory.
So if you check some facts on the website you might find it clashing with what I told you.

Best Regards
Ralf


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