International Leather Maker

A decade ago, Stephen Emmott wrote a dreadful book predicated upon frightening readers about the never-ending growth of the world population. He used a graph from 10 BC to 2100 AD to argue that an almost empty chart followed by exponential growth by 2100 would take us to a population of 10 billion and beyond. […]

Last week, I attended a Climate Adaptation Training session. It was a first for me as we start to recognise that we are too far gone to stop some drastic changes. Mitigation must continue to try and keep temperatures low, but adaptation now needs to be on the agenda to consider how to get through […]

In the modern world of short attention spans, these articles are put on social media with easy links to encourage a quick read. I have been using Twitter since June 2008 and do it myself, but with Twitter now only for specialist users, the business side of the leather industry uses LinkedIn as its main […]

If there was one headline I did not expect to read in my favourite weekend newspaper, it was “Catwalks of clothes made to last”. Yet, that was what the Financial Times Fashion Editor Lauren Indvik chose as her top line two weeks ago for a thorough report on the Paris fashion shows. For a while […]

There was a time when we all used to celebrate the top leather scientists. Their names were on our tongues and we were honoured to have the chance to meet them and hear their thoughts on the future. I travelled through Europe in 1966 and was privileged to meet Professor Herfield and Professor Heidemann and […]

Leather is used to make things. Tanneries seek out manufacturers that use leather as the sole or shared component in the article being made. That the leather is a “component” leads to discussions about the role of ingredient branding, reminding us of campaigns such as “Intel inside”, NutraSweet and “Gore-Tex”. Yet we must not allow […]

Innovation has people confused, whether it comes to how to define it, how to get involved in it or how to apply it. We have been watching this with chrome tanning; both its arrival and its departure. First thought up in the 1830s, it was not really until the 1920s and 1930s that it started […]

Cities have always needed leather, but they have never fitted together very well. As cities evolved, they soon pushed leathermaking out. Before long, most manufacturing was despatched to the suburbs or regional towns to be replaced by service industries related to things like finance and insurance along with hospitality and tourism. In many major cities, […]

I like the analogue world. For 30 years, I have carried a fountain pen and blotting paper, accepting the occasional leaks in jacket pockets and onto shirts as an acceptable price to pay for the creative pleasure of putting ink on paper. I prefer going to live football matches to watch my battling local lower […]

Last December, I put some emphasis on the rising importance of collaboration. It has been good to see our senior industry bodies working together so closely on a wide number of topics. The big highlight was the powerful Leather Manifesto, which more than 30 leather bodies from across the globe signed before both the COP26 […]