the times | Thursday May 26 2022 5
News
Stella McCartney, the British designer,
has launched a handbag made from
“mushroom leather” that is available to
order for almost £2,000.
Her luxury brand, which is known for
its strong sustainability credentials, has
been working with Bolt Threads, a Cali-
fornian start-up, since 2017 and the
handbag is their first commercially via-
ble product made using the fungus
But, to date, he’s zero for one in the
courtroom on the central issue in this
case back when he lost the same exact
case in England.”
In 2020 the High Court in London
ruled that News Group Newspapers,
the publisher of The Sun, had not
libelled Depp in a 2018 article that
referred to him as a “wife-beater”.
Depp, 58, sued Heard over a column
in The Washington Post in 2018 in which
she described herself as a victim of
domestic abuse. She has countersued
him for $100 million. The pair married
in 2015 but separated a year later and
divorced. The trial continues.
Front-row seat for top advocacy in
action, Law, page 59When Patti Page recorded her novelty
hit (How Much is) That Doggie in the
Window in 1952 she asked one of the
great unanswered questions.
The answer, according to research
released yesterday, is that prices have
fallen from a record high of £2,237 to
£1,329 as the lockdown mania for pup-
pies begins to recede.
The average price of dogs advertised
with the pet shop Pets4Homes between
January and April this year was 40 per
cent lower than last year.
Although demand for dogs has tailed
sustained by the judge. Heard’s lawyers
declined to cross-examine Moss.
Depp returned to the stand and said
the incident in Jamaica oc-
curred exactly how Moss
said it had.
“Ms Heard took the
story and turned it into
a very ugly incident all
in her mind,” Depp,
who had previously
told his former wife
about Moss’s fall,
said. “There was
never a moment
where I pushed
Kate down any
set of stairs yetshe’s [Heard] spewed this three times
before.”
Depp, 58, claimed it was
Heard who had started
the rumour that violence
had occurred. He said:
“I’d never heard a ru-
mour of that before Ms
Heard grabbed hold
of it.”
A source close
to Heard said: “So
Johnny Depp
didn’t abuse Kate
Moss. That
makes him one
for two in the
abuse column.off since people were able to find com-
panionship with fellow humans, prices
are still higher than the pre-lockdown
average of £876.
One of the reasons for the drop in
price is that some people have become
amateur puppy breeders as a way of
earning money while stuck at home.
The report found that people describ-
ing themselves as “hobby breeders”
rose from 55 per cent of sellers to 75 per
cent this April.
Breeders are able to charge £1,609 for
a cavapoo puppy, the most desired
crossbreed, £1,346 for a labradoodle
and £1,336 for a miniature poodle. Thecheapest puppies are lurchers (£374),
patterdale terriers (£593) and border
collies (£606).
Lee Gibson, UK managing director
at Pets4Homes, said that there was lit-
tle evidence to suggest that people were
abandoning “pandemic puppies” and
reselling them. Sales of non-puppy
dogs are broadly unchanged from 2021.
“For years, the UK has suffered from
a chronic undersupply of puppies and
kittens that has failed to meet the de-
mand for pets, in particular during the
height of the pandemic,” Gibson said.
“Inevitably, this discrepancy has en-
ticed unscrupulous sellers and those in-volved in the low welfare and illegal
puppy trade to profit from people’s de-
sire for a furry companion.
“We are glad that we are finally see-
ing these trends reverse with a rise in
breeding by UK hobby breeders while
demand is normalising.”
Cats also became a popular compan-
ion during lockdown but prices have
now fallen by 20 per cent. The Devon
rex attracted the largest number of
buyers per advertised kitten.
The most popular pets were dogs,
with 63 per cent of sales, followed by
cats (15 per cent), rabbits (6 per cent), ro-
dents (5 per cent) and birds (4 per cent).Lockdown puppy mania ends as prices fall from pandemic high
Jack Malvern
Most expensive popular breeds- Cavapoo....................................£1,609.
- Labradoodle ........................... £1,346.
- Miniature poodle .................. £1,336.
Cheapest popular breeds- Lurcher...........................................£374.
- Patterdale terrier ..................... £593.
- Border collie..............................£606.
Source: Pets4Homes (Jan-April 2022 averages)
How much is that doggie?
Kate Moss told a court that Johnny
Depp did not push her down a flight
of stairs as rumoured, as the model
became the latest celebrity to be
dragged into the actor’s libel action
against Amber Heard.
Moss, 48, who was in a relationship
with Depp from 1994 to 1998, made a
brief appearance via video link
to recall an incident during
a holiday at a resort in
Jamaica.
The model be-
came involved in
Depp’s $50 million
lawsuit against his
former wife
because Heard
had mentioned her
during her testimo-
ny, apparently refer-
encing a rumour
about the Caribbean
holiday.
Heard, 36, had been re-
calling an alleged row in March
2015 in which she said she feared Depp
would push her sister, Whitney Henriq-
uez, down the stairs. Heard said she “in-
stantly” thought about “Kate Moss and
the stairs”.
One of Depp’s lawyers greeted
Heard’s mention of Moss with an en-
thusiastic fist pump because it meant
that he could call the model to testify.
Moss told the court in Fairfax, Vir-
ginia, that she was giving evidence from
Gloucestershire. Her testimony lasted
Kate Moss is sworn in to give evidence via video link in Johnny Depp’s libel action in Fairfax, Virginia, against his former wife
Amber Heard, left. Moss and Depp, below at a film premiere in Beverly Hills in 1995, were in a relationship from 1994 to 1998Depp did not
push me down
stairs, Moss
tells libel trial
less than three minutes. Asked by Ben
Chew, one of Depp’s lawyers, if she
knew the actor, Moss replied: “Yes I do.
I had a relationship with him.”
It was a romantic relationship, Moss
said, and took place in the mid-1990s.
She was asked to recall a holiday with
Depp at the GoldenEye resort in Jamai-
ca and said that she fell down a flight of
stairs after a rain storm.
Moss said: “We were leaving
the room and Johnny left
the room before I did
and there had been a
rain storm and as I
left the room, I
slipped down the
stairs and I hurt
my back.
“And I
screamed
because I didn’t
know what hap-
pened to me and I
was in pain and he
came running back to
help me and carried me to
my room and got me medical
attention.”
Asked by Chew if Depp had pushed
her, Moss replied: “No.” Asked if Depp
had ever pushed her down any stairs,
Moss replied: “No, he never pushed me,
kicked me or threw me down any
stairs.”
She added that she had never given
evidence before in court proceedings.
Chew attempted to ask her why she had
done so in this case but Heard’s team
lodged an objection, which wasKeiran Southern Los Angeles
EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/REUTERSa video link
during
rt inur
eaneen re-
ow in March
id she fearedDeppMoss said:
the room
the roo
and t
rain
lef
sli
st
msc
be
kn
pene
was i
came r
hhhhelp me an
my room and
attention”For fun gals, Stella McCartney’s £2,000 ‘mushroom leather’ handbag
Katie Gibbons mycelium. A relatively new material to
high fashion, it is the network of under-
ground threads called hyphae
from which mushrooms
grow.
When expertly treated,
mycelium becomes supple
and soft and can be processed
into a thickness similar to
animal leather. McCartney’s first ever
mushroom leather bag made from
Mylo, Bolt Threads’s mushroom leather
material, is going on sale on
July 1 and can be pre-or-
dered online for £1,995.
The product has taken
five years and more than
5,000 attempts to perfect
and will initially launch with a
100-bag run, before being
integrated into the brand’smain collection from next year.
McCartney said it embodies a commit-
ment “to innovate a kinder fashion in-
dustry — one that sees the birth of
beautiful, luxurious materials as op-
posed to the deaths of our fellow crea-
tures and planet”.
McCartney has also created the
world’s first garments made from the
fungus. Though not for sale, the bustier
top and trousers “embody the potential
of this next-generation material”.To make the leather alternative, sci-
entists recreate ideal natural growing
conditions in a controlled indoor set-
ting. The spores are fed with sawdust
and other organic material and then
spread out to grow. When the mat is
filled with mycelium it is harvested and
the by-products are composted. The
mycelium is then processed and dyed.
Other companies that have incorpo-
rated mycelium include Adidas, Her-
mès and athletics brand Lululemon.The handbag has taken five
years to get right