Leather

If you want to know why you must pay your dues to your trade association, find your way to the recording of last week’s EU Green Week Event: Leather, a Natural Choice for the Circular Economy, run by Cotance. Many did – reportedly 300 plus people from 20 countries were online. I normally do a jigsaw while […]

At a black-tie Leather Industry Dinner hosted by the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers of London last week, I was delighted to pass the port to my neighbour on the left (by tradition derived from the British Navy the port decanter is always moved to the left – port to port). Leathersellers have been having such […]

ILM columnist Mike Redwood explores the challenges of climate adaptation, urban design and leather’s role in a shifting world ahead of COP30 in Brazil. I have never heard of Carlo Ratto or attended a Venice Architectural Biennale and, although it seems impossible that I will make it, this year’s is the one I want to […]

We have bemoaned the fact that the leather industry was slow to industrialise for a long time and continued with ancient processes until uncovering the wonders of modern science with chrome tanning at the end of the 19th century. By about 1200 BCE, the main tanning processes were being used and for the next 3,000 […]

When the combined efforts of animal rights and the fossil fuel lobbies decided to put attention on leather based on the (wrongly calculated) methane output from livestock, a lot of European commentators argued that leather had to focus more on upmarket luxury goods. Since then, there has clearly been a greater proportion of leather consumed […]

Fires in tanneries were common events in the 20th century. Many readers will, like me, have seen quite a few if their experience in the industry goes back several decades. Two days ago, I was planning to write about a devastating 16th-century fire in Murcia in Spain which took 200 lives, started in a lime […]

Over the weekend, we have again celebrated World Leather Day, and this year more tanners and others involved with leather have found their own aspect to support. Four days before, on April 22, Earth Day was first celebrated back in 1970. World Leather Day, on the other hand, was only started in 2022 by Leather […]

We would do well to give more acknowledgment to those who work on repairing and restoring items made of leather. They carry out a vital task in extending the working lives of articles and are often the first moment the consumer realises leather is not always leather; when a customer who thought “bonded” or “synthetic” […]

One of the fundamentals underlying current geopolitics is two sets of consumers. American consumers spend rather than save, while Chinese consumers are less willing to spend and chose to save. High consumer spending and low savings leads to imports, borrowings and trade deficits. Total U.S. borrowing is currently over US$36 trillion. The other means to […]

While at University back in the 1960s I was given a Little Red Book. “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung” was a pocket-sized compilation of excerpts from Mao’s speeches and writings, which Chinese citizens were required to carry.  But quotes like “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” were not easy to slip into student […]