Handbag made using T.rex fossil goes on sale in Paris

A handbag made with collagen derived from Tyrannosaurus rex fossils from the United States, intended to demonstrate the value of laboratory-grown leather, will go under the hammer in Paris on Thursday (June 11).

The teal-colored bag was on display at Drouot auction house on Tuesday (June 9) ahead of the auction. It is expected to fetch between 300,000 to 500,000 euros ($347,000 - 578,000 approx).

"It’s a mix between a dream, a scientific reality, and a bit of a grand fantasy," said auctioneer Alexandre Gicquello, from Gicquello auction house, one of the organisers of the sale.

Scientists behind the initiative said the material was developed using ancient protein fragments extracted from dinosaur remains, found in Montana in the 2000s, which were inserted into an unidentified animal's cell to produce collagen that was turned into leather.

Although some scientists outside the project have expressed scepticism about the term "T. rex leather," saying material from other animals would be needed, palaeontology expert Iacopo Briano said the handbag features the real "structure generated by cellular calculations from the information we gathered from the fossils".

The handbag was designed by experimental garment brand Enfin Leve.

"They chose a colour that matches really well with this, I would say, prehistoric surface. It gives you an idea of the age of an antique object, even though it just was created in a laboratory only a couple of months ago,” Briano said.

Production: Ardee Napolitano/Reuters