To the Chinese, 2007 is the Year of the Pig, but for fashionistas it might turn out to be the Year of the Ostrich.

Just five years ago, ostrich hides were piling up in warehouses in South Africa, which produces 65 percent of the world’s ostrich leather—a $122 million business. But this fall, you’ll be seeing plenty of the newly trendy skins, thanks to a three-year-old, $700,000 campaign called Ostrivision that has transformed how ostrich-leather manufacturers market their product.

In 2004, ostrich producers were faced with competition from other exotic skins, and prices were sagging. The South African Ostrich Business Chamber, an industry umbrella group, realized that an odd-looking bird with pockmarked skin was not going to sell itself. So it created Ostrivision, the industry’s first-ever collective marketing effort. South African suppliers began to jointly create mock-up examples of novel ways to use ostrich leather, such as in an automotive interior or for a furniture line. They started coordinating their presence at major leather fairs in Las Vegas, Bologna, Italy, and Hong Kong. Last summer, the South African Ostrich Business Chamber sponsored the first Paris Fashion Week show by a South African designer, Gavin Rajah, whose models strutted the runway wearing ostrich-leather dresses and jewelry and carrying ostrich-leather handbags. And last winter, targeting interior decorators, South African ostrich-leather producers participated in the first U.S.-based showroom devoted to the product, in Atlanta, chosen for its modestly priced venue space and convenience as an international hub.

Ostrivision’s marketing blitz has led to double-digit gains in sales and an 80 percent spike in prices. Karl Lagerfeld, Escada, Gucci, and Cole Haan all feature ostrich in their collections this fall. Ostrich-accented interiors are among the options available in Toyota’s 2008 Tundra Double Cab Limited and CrewMax Limited pickups. And Veuve Clicquot’s special-edition, jumbo-size bottles made for the 130th anniversary of its non-vintage Yellow Label brut champagne are clad in labels handcrafted from ray, alligator, or ostrich.

Still, not everyone is loving ostrich leather. Its popularity exasperates animal-rights activists, who are anxious to save yet another creature from fashion. Designer Marc Bouwer, a longtime PETA supporter, calls the trend horrific. He makes an argument that you rarely hear in the industry: Buy the fake. “Ostrich skin can be easily duplicated with technology,” he says. “I want the guilt-free, environmentally correct version.”

The good news for ostrich leather’s opponents is that fads, by definition, don’t last. What seems chic now may look pimply next season, which is why Ostrivision’s backers believe they need to look further into the future. “We can only attempt to keep our product constantly in the eye of the designers,” says Wim van Rooyen of Klein Karoo, the world’s largest ostrich-leather producer. “The fashion industry, by its very nature, is fickle.”