Pelcor

Pelcor began in Lisbon in 2003, building a fashion and accessories line entirely around cork - a material the brand sources from Portugal's cork oak forests (montados), where each tree's bark can only be harvested again after roughly nine years of regrowth. The bulk of the range is what the brand's name announces: bags, wallets, backpacks, belts and apparel finished in cork skin, a thin, flexible sheet of cork bonded to a fabric backing that behaves closer to leather than to wine-stopper cork. Within that range, the house's most distinctive single piece is its Tall Umbrella, sold in cork skin over a black frame - a combination the brand itself calls an unlikely one, since cork is not an obvious rain-cover material. The current version has a thinner handle than its predecessor and comes with a carrying sleeve and shoulder strap, priced around 90 euros, with a canopy roughly 105cm across. It is not the core of Pelcor's business - bags and small leather-style goods still dominate the catalogue - but the cork umbrella has become one of the brand's identifying pieces precisely because it demonstrates what cork skin can do beyond a wallet or a tote. The Lisbon flagship, on Pedras Negras street in the Baixa district, sells the full range in person alongside the brand's online shop.