Skindex, the prisoner product marketed by SingeWear and used in the making of wallets, purses, and cumberbunds, has emerged as a strong competitior to traditional leather in the crowded fashion accessories market. Its sales have already topped the 50 million mark and its success has spawned imitation companies like Second Skin Inc. and Electric Company of Men. It's an American success story that started after a simple "why not?" from company co-founder Hubbard.

"I said to myself, there's got to be something we can do with the bodies," explained Hubbard about his reasons for starting the company, "It's just a real waste to put these dead prisoners in a wooden box and haul 'em off. We took their damn life, we might as well take their skin too."

Hubbard then took the unusual step of contacting someone with brains in the fashion industry. He found Giovanni Benezzi, a long-time fashion insider. In the 80's Benezzi was a big-time promoter of leg-warmers, and in the 90's he oversaw Kanga's high-profile beret division. But according to Benezzi, those fads don't come close to the potential of Skindex. "Skindex is bigger than alligator, better than naugahyde, and cheaper than pashmina. Skindex stands to be for the millennium what Nehru was for the 60's," says Benezzi.

The new-found use of the skin of condemned men hasn't been without controversy. Critics call the fashion trend sick, depraved and deplorable and make comparisions to the Nazi's experimentation with Jewish prisoners in World War II. Others question a practice that commodifies a part of the body and encourages states to make money by killing its prisoners and selling their remains to SingeWear. Benezzi is quick to disagree, "The highly sensitive and conscientious fashion industry sees no problem with it."

The increasing interest in Skindex has had a noticeable effect on the profitable prison industry. According to statistics, prosecutors in states that employ the electric chair will try for the death penalty more often than prosecutors in states with lethal injection, the gas chamber, hanging, firing squads or stoning. Texas, the nation's largest supplier of dead prisoners at 164 last year alone, is considering switching from lethal injection to the electric chair in anticipation of the increasing market for Skindex. Illinois, a state which suspended the death penalty after 13 of 25 death row men were found to be innocent, is now considering reinstating executions in order to pump more capital into its depressed Lottery division. Benezzi welcomes the decision, "Guilty or innocent, it doesn't matter to us as long as they are dead as a doornail."

The surging success of SingeWear lies partly in the chemical processes underneath the surface. According to a study from the University of Texas's Criminal Cultivation Department, the skin of criminals is typically stronger and more knife-resistant than normal humans. Criminal skin has stronger bonding qualities and when electrified a new 'super-skin' emerges. Explains Dean James Schadenfield, "We have found that the electron bombardment of the criminal epidermis effectively fuses the skin molecules to each other, creating a more commercially useful product that can, if treated properly with care, last for decades." Continues Schadenfield, "When up to 20,000 volts of electricity surge through the layers of skin, something special happens."

Clearly, the whole process is sick to imagine. But that hasn't stopped SingeWear, the fashion market, nor the government. A criminal union has made a plea in federal prison court to stop the process, but it is likely that their skins too will one day be made into Skindex. As Shirley Klein, managing editor of Woman's Wear Daily puts it, "Skindex is simply the best new product we've had in years. It doesn't really matter where it came from — Skindex purses are all the rage and nothing is going to stop that."

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