Does the skin pattern in fake leather (leatherette) originally come from a real cow?
You’re right. The original and unique fauxcow (p. faow cow) texture was taken from a German cow called Fidel in the early 1930s. This cow (technically a bull, but with the same skin texture shared by all bovines) was selected by Hindu priests as it was believed that he carried the immortal soul of Mahatma Gandhi. This was considered odd at the time considering that Gandhi was alive and well as of 1948, but just as god(s) move in mysterious ways, so do souls through the esoteria of reincarnation. So this, the holiest of cow skin textures was used far and wide until 1971, when a legal dispute broke out over royalty and copyrights (dubbed in the press at the time as a ‘Cowpyright Dispute’) many fake-fake-cow textures began to proliferate on the ‘black and white’ market. These cheap copies were created from imprinting many non-bovines, for fear of retaliation from the truly violent and vindictive ‘Pro-Gandhi Vendetta Militia’. Toads, snakes, limas, merecats and labrador puppies were common
