Differentiate or die

Mike Redwood

Columnist

International Leather Maker

The good rises to the top. But in leather, “good” must mean the whole package. It cannot mean selecting the hides of a few ideal cattle breeds while treating the rest of the available raw material as an inconvenience. Where animals are already raised for food, their carcasses deserve to be used intelligently and respectfully. Farmers deserve value for the co-products created by the livestock they nurture. And consumers deserve products that carry memory, character and a life beyond a single season.

Right now, the leather industry is nervous. Reports from the recent Sustainable Leather Forum (SLF) held in Paris on September 7 suggest the amount of leather being used is declining. What has really happened in the few years since we were being told that every hide and skin possible was being made into leather and promoting leather would only damage the price structure?

It is appropriate that the industry gathers in Milan for Lineapelle next week where Italian vision and imagination in how to use all types of raw material to create real consumer value has been on show for decades, if not centuries.

In an increasingly automated and screen-based world, leather should be more important. Material reality matters to fight declining mental health issues and humanise a world of fragile citizens. People still respond to objects that are warm, tactile, variable and visibly connected to the natural world: timber, fibres, paper, stone and leather. These materials do not merely perform a function. They have presence. They age, acquire marks and tell stories.

The leather industry must ask itself a blunt question. Is it trying to become cheaper, faster and more uniform, or is it prepared to become more recognisably itself?

Every hide and skin should be handled on its own merits

The reality remains that technology commoditises the routine and increases the value of the distinctive, but leather makers have spent 10,000 years teaching others and itself, especially itself, to distinguish species, substance, grain, handle, defect and grade. Yet the industry has too often used that knowledge in a way that has flattened difference rather than celebrated it. One leather after another has been copied, standardised and dragged beneath the commodity umbrella. “Well-made leather sells itself” was always a dangerously complacent claim. Nothing sells itself when the market has not been taught why it matters.

Let us be quite clear about this picture. Leather that is produced in bulk for fast-fashion and cheap products will continue to be substituted by synthetics. Synthetics are designed for standardisation, speed and price. Leather’s opportunity lies in in natural variation, skilled making, provenance, touch, durability, repair and the ability to grow more beautiful with age.

The most important thing I learned when I worked in Santa Croce in Italy was that every piece of leather should be handled on its own merits. The rush to a grading decision that condemns whole sectors to heavy pigmentation is often a route to failure. Nearly all the finishing I learned in Tuscany involved a degree of hand work: stains, effects and careful treatment that allowed the grain to speak and gave the finished leather the chance to develop a fine patina in use.

Not every hide can, or should, be finished in that way. But the starting point should be to ask what nature has given us and how it can be made valuable. Too often the starting point has instead been: how quickly can we conceal it?

Tanners must improve their environmental performance with urgency: less water and energy, more renewable power, tighter management of chemicals and effluents, as well as better utilisation of every part of the raw material stream and in tannery ‘wastes’ or byproducts. They need traceability systems that work not only for highly organised supply chains but also, where possible, for more complex pastoral and nomadic livestock systems. They should offer vegetable and chrome-free tanning systems suited for modern usage, and work with independent verification rather than relying on simplistic claims about any single chemistry leveraging certifications to demonstrate third-party approvals that advocacy bodies can cite.

Sustainability and authenticity should not be treated as premium add-ons. They should be basic conditions of doing business.

The same applies to circularity. Leather has a strong story to tell about longevity, repair and reuse, but that story is nothing unless first made real through practical partnerships with farmers, brands, retailers, repairers, collectors and recyclers. The sector needs systems for take-back, refurbishment and sensible recovery at end-of-life. It must show that it understands the full material journey, not just the tanning drum.

We were taught that good leather involves time and patience in the making, the idea that we should race it through the tannery has replaced its true values with a low price. Allowing consumers access to leather’s true value is the right thing to do.

Synthetics are now being commoditised by their own environmental flaws

The commoditisation that has been destroying the role of leather holds an evolving paradox: synthetics which have been the major disruptor are now becoming commoditised by their own environmental flaws while the original incumbent is reclaiming distinctiveness through sustainability, craftsmanship and innovation.

Has leather ever had a better opportunity in decades to reverse the trend of losing market share? It is a huge opportunity, and I challenge the panicky stakeholders to get back to the tannery and rethink their product lines and their positioning in the market. It is the fundamentals and culture of making that must change, rather than the words, or the future is very limited for most tanners globally.

In its battles with substitutes, leather has been given breathing space since most of the NewGen biomaterials that were expected to wipe out the leather industry have failed or been too difficult to scale up commercially. With the last six months offering drastic reminders that Climate Change is arriving even faster than expected, the leather industry needs to invest to stay ahead of the anticipated onslaught of low-grade cheap synthetics as husbandry issues make raw material becomes difficult to obtain.

Imagine a convergence creating a new generation of leathers and materials

This means tanners must become willing to collaborate with biotech firms to develop new and hybrid materials that combine leather’s aesthetics with synthetics’ functionality. Materials such as Innovera – one of the survivors so far – that fits into a tannery as an alternate raw material and allow tanners to use their skills with non-woven networks.

Imagine over the next ten years a convergence between leather and bio-synthetics, borrowing from each other’s strengths, creating a new generation of materials to work alongside leather that are fully sustainable, functional and culturally rich. The winners will be those who can balance technology with tradition, and scalability with distinctiveness. Combining leather with recycled synthetics to create affordable yet sustainable hybrid products will be part of this.

The data suggest the industry is polarising, and leather’s future now depends on its short-term decisions. Leather’s future depends on which side it chooses.

A week in Milan is a chance not merely to inspect the season’s colours and finishes, but to reimagine the direction of the industry. The task is not to make leather look more like a synthetic. It is to make its natural advantages more visible, more credible and more valuable.

Differentiate or die.

mike@internationalleathermaker.com

You can find Dr Mike Redwood across social media at @michaelredwood.

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