Opinion » Comment
Credit: Luke Insoll
Published: 03 April, 2020
In one of his ILM blogs posted on this website in January 2019, Mike Redwood referred to an interesting comment posed at a Leather Naturally panel meeting during the Portland Materials Show which took pace in the Autumn of 2018. John Graebin, Director of Materials for Deckers Outdoor Corp, asked the audience to consider how leather would be viewed if it was discovered today for the first time. A renewable, sustainable, durable, versatile yet beautiful material; in fact, the very best example of what a modern material in its class should be.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 01 April, 2020
Over the last few decades, the leather industry has become caught up and dragged along in the world of modern retail and fast fashion. We have steadily suffered from it as prices have been dragged down to meet supposed consumer expectations. Even the so-called luxury sector has pushed hard for share of retail with glitzy marketing and stores in every major airport and city on the globe and has kept margins very tight, with most of the tanners used in supply.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 25 March, 2020
As the world is impacted by a virus whose origins and spread has been a consequence of globalisation, it is individual countries which have been acting to date, and responding one by one to the situation it finds itself in. While the factories of much of China return to work and the shops there reopen, Europe and the USA are shutting both as I write.
Read more...
Credit: Philipp Lublasser
Published: 24 March, 2020
As the world is battling a pandemic of unparalleled scale, global leaders are increasingly resorting to wartime analogies to describe the current situation. We are indeed at war. And the fact that the enemy is an invisible virus, makes it all the more difficult and harder to “fight”, to stay within the terminology.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 18 March, 2020
The islands in the South Atlantic were remote and hard to reach. Our three weeks walking and watching wildlife there had been deliberately chosen a year ago; a place where we would be free of everyday news and the unrelenting pressures of the internet. The global state of affairs before and after our trip could hardly have been more stark in contrast.
Read more...
Picture: Burberry
Published: 12 March, 2020
When Marco Gobetti, CEO of British luxury brand Burberry, announced his turnaround strategy for the ailing fashion house around two and a half years ago, he put expansion into leather goods and handbags - an area where the brand has struggled to compete - at the top of his agenda.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 11 March, 2020
I have just ended a rather tough week. For four days I was away studying plastics, and then I went to see the recently released film Dark Waters.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 04 March, 2020
One of the most curious aspects of the last decade has been the absence of the leather industry from social media, while most of our customers in key areas like sports, automotive and luxury have become global leaders in using it to advantage.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 25 February, 2020
A little over two years ago at the International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC4) in Chile, one of the most influential attendees was quoted saying “in the space of a single generation, human activity has severely damaged the ocean by catching fish faster than they can reproduce while also destroying their nurseries.”
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 19 February, 2020
It is barely daylight as I write this, not yet 6am. It is Sunday and this is the Southern Hemisphere. Our position is about 53 degrees South and only 1,200 km from the Antarctic Peninsula across what is called Drake Passage. It has felt like a wild night as the wind has howled around our primitive accommodation in an old container – adapted into what was once commonly called a Portacabin.
Read more...
Isabella Griffiths
First published in the January/February 2020 edition of ILM
Published: 18 February, 2020
By the time you are reading this, Veganuary 2020, the campaign to encourage consumers to switch to a plant-based diet during the month of January, will have almost come to an end, and if the media hype is to be believed, with a record uptake (around 350,000 people are said to have signed up to the initiative in the UK at the start of January). We will have to wait for the final stats to get a clearer picture of the ultimate response, not just in the UK, but globally, as the official campaign was also launched in Germany, the U.S. and Chile for the first time.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 11 February, 2020
Eighteen months ago, we were having dinner with Bob Higham and his wife Diana in their house in Berwick, on the border of Scotland and England. Recently having entered his eighties, he was still actively interested in the leather industry, and busy continuing to plan more cross-country walks to support charities such as the Nepal Leprosy Trust, where he had been a Trustee in the 80s and 90s, and the Berwickshire Christian Youth Trust.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 05 February, 2020
If ever there was a time to find ways to do things differently, and remotely, now is that time.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 29 January, 2020
1. Make it properly and don’t cut corners with cheap chemicals and badly maintained machinery. Hides and skins may be renewable - up to a point - but they are a costly, valuable resource.
Read more...
Picture credit: Toimetaja Tolkeburoo
Published: 27 January, 2020
In the same week that Autocar published an article propagating the rise of vegan leathers in the car industry, attentions turned to the sporting world, too, with fellow British newspaper The Telegraph publishing a piece titled “If sport is really going vegan, is it time to get rid of leather cricket balls?”
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 22 January, 2020
Are we a lazy industry? I sometimes wonder. Twice in the last two weeks I have been asked about comparative test data to compare leather with synthetics, and as far as I know, as an industry we have no peer reviewed papers which we can use as an industry to fight our case.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 15 January, 2020
When thinking about raw material these days, we tend to focus on two issues – animal welfare and traceability. These have arisen to create auditable routes which fit into a “tick-box” approach and certainly have their relevance.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 08 January, 2020
We are now entering the third decade of the new millennium and are in sight of that far-off year of 2050. Only three decades to go. A look back at the last three decades of the leather industry is not reassuring.
Read more...
Could 2020 be a better year for the leather industry?
Published: 23 December, 2019
To say 2019 has been a difficult year for the leather sector is nothing short of an understatement. The industry has been under attack from all fronts and there have been some casualties along the way. Writes ILM Editor, Isabella Griffiths.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 18 December, 2019
I was impressed by the positioning of the Dacia Logan when it first launched in 2004 and enjoyed the fact that in a marketing class of 200 students at the University of Bath, for many years the students had no idea what a Dacia Logan actually was. Meanwhile, it was proving itself spectacularly successful and a perfect example of a product designed to meet a well defined consumer demand.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 11 December, 2019
China has just instructed all its government organisations not only to buy Chinese software and computers, but to remove foreign ones. It is one of the clearest signs yet that the tariff battles initiated by the U.S. are set to leave a legacy long after any change in administrations in both or either countries.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 04 December, 2019
The move by Heller Leather to link with Bolt Threads, the owner of MYLO, will come as a shock to many passionate tanners who hate the marketing approach of the new materials being presented as replacements for leather.
Read more...
Picture: Leit & Held
Published: 02 December, 2019
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Nina Conrad, the Head of Supply Chain Management at Leit & Held, a young German leather goods label founded by a trio of women with an interdisciplinary background in design, interior architecture and sustainability.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 27 November, 2019
The best things in life are free, so we are told; although it is hard to imagine how this applies to the leather industry. For me, it took the unexpected serendipity of a trip to Ethiopia, for it was there I was able to spend an hour with Ivan Král who runs the leather side of UNIDO from his office high in the UNIDO building in Vienna.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 20 November, 2019
It is easy to complain about the film Erin Brockovich creating the public sentiment against chromium, and to be angry with PETA and other vegan and animal rights groups for their propaganda against anything to do with animals. The FAO were clearly to blame for a gross error in releasing the 2006 report Livestock’s Long Shadow and providing supposedly authoritative data to be used against animal products.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 13 November, 2019
Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, produced his Report To Congress On The Subject Of Manufactures in 1791. A lot of politics was involved, and he ended his life being fatally injured duelling with swords. Many of his views fit (or are made to fit) with the recent more isolationist thinking that has stalled what appeared to be relentless progress towards globalisation and western style democracy.
Read more...
Picture: EcoDomo
Published: 11 November, 2019
For a while now fashion retailers such as Marks & Spencer in the UK, Swedish fashion giant H&M, Spanish headquartered chain Zara or U.S. brands such as North Face or Eileen Fisher, to name just a few, have been offering take-back programmes of used clothing.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 06 November, 2019
Increasingly, brands have started to accept and even work with the second-hand market. The jump from loud consumer complaints about Burberry burning old stock to offering some of those who sell second-hand items via their US partner The RealReal and a personal shopping session and tea is indicative of a big change of heart.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 30 October, 2019
It is worth having a brief look at Bangladesh. With over ten years of steadily rising costs in China and now a trade war ongoing between China and the U.S., Bangladesh should be reaping the benefit with a world leading leather industry.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 23 October, 2019
Not many from the leather industry attended the first edition of the Sustainable Fashion Conference on March 14, 2019 during the APLF Show in Hong Kong. It was held upstairs, in the expansive area to which the whole show will move next year, allowing everyone more space to move about in.
Read more...
Credit: Artificial Photography
Published: 22 October, 2019
Before I joined ILM earlier this year, I spent 13 years as Editor of a leading b2b magazine for the fashion retail industry in the UK, arguably one of the most prestigious apparel markets and most dynamic retail sectors in the world.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 16 October, 2019
Leather making is difficult. What we are doing is “conditioning” a natural material to stabilise the structure against bacteria and adjust it to perfectly serve its required end use.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 08 October, 2019
There is no doubt that a new impetus has been needed in the leather industry that must be built around the two fundamentals of marketing and innovation. What is more, neither can be quiet, incremental and merely involve more of the same as in the past.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 02 October, 2019
Liverpool needs little introduction with its top football team returning to prominence in the last few seasons. It has many other reasons to be famous from the Beatles to waterside buildings exactly like the Shanghai Bund, which serve to remind us what an important global shipping centre it has been for centuries.
Read more...
Picture credit: Vincent Delegge
Published: 27 September, 2019
Lately, and all too frequently, it has become commonplace for mainstream as well as social media reports to lay into the leather industry, elements of its supply chain and processes, or the wider meat sector as a whole. Leather is under attack, and leather makers and finished goods producers are increasingly on the backfoot, having to constantly defend themselves and their industry from mistruths and negative, anti-leather propaganda.
Read more...
Picture credit: Stefan Widua
Published: 25 September, 2019
In 2013 two significant books were published about the growth in world population with 10 Billion prominent in the title. One was by Danny Dorling, a geography Professor, and the other by Stephen Emmott, another celebrated scientist who advises governments and in 2013 was Head of Computational Science at Microsoft Research.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 18 September, 2019
Modern geopolitics has become a major influence on the leather industry in a way that is unusual outside of war, albeit, it was the slower application of geopolitical trends that pushed leather making out of the more advanced economies and into the emerging markets.
Read more...
Credit: Sam Carter
Published: 16 September, 2019
Concerns around animal welfare as well as ethical considerations are the driving motif behind the vegan movement amid a wider environmental agenda and pursuit of a greener lifestyle.
Read more...
Credit: Eccofinishing
Published: 11 September, 2019
An overview of the raw materials market trends following the ACLE in Shanghai, September 3-5 and the outlook over the coming weeks as the industry prepares for Lineapelle in Milan and the next buying season. Overview written by a Market Analyst at theSauerReport.com
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 11 September, 2019
What is the takeaway from a week in Shanghai? In simple terms, it is make relevant leathers and tell a good story. Be sure you have an honest sustainability story, that your processing is responsible, that your management of all wastes is comprehensive and honest and you treat your workforce fairly. If you miss these points, you are not at the party. Others will beat you, and some of those others will not be leather.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 03 September, 2019
It is a wet Monday and we are drinking tea in a hotel lobby in Shanghai to keep warm. Typical really as we stole the (rather dishonest) tea producing process out of China so we could do it in India and now the U.S. is putting tariffs everywhere to stop China stealing intellectual property. The tea heist back in 1848 was carried out by Scotsman, Robert Fortune, dressed as a Mandarin. Today’s activities are apparently full frontal but in everything today the black arts of cybercrime and straightforward political double speak play a big role.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 28 August, 2019
Whatever definition of marketing you use, and the leather industry has a poor record at definitions, it was not leather industry marketing that caused the global financial crash in 2007 nor pushed hide prices over US$100 a hide a couple of years ago. On the other hand, it was a clear industry failure to grasp even the fundamentals of marketing that has meant there has been so much surprise that leather has not seen a rebound in market share since hide prices started collapsing.
Read more...
Mike Redwood
Published: 21 August, 2019
“And finally this century is nearly two decades old, and if you look around the innovation that our customers are seeing has come more from the alternatives than it has from leather.”
Read more...
Agha Saiddain
Published: 19 August, 2019
Agha Saiddain, Marketing Director of Pakistan based tanners, Royal Leather Industries located in Lahore and the current Chairman of the Pakistan Tanners’ Association (PTA) Central section, has presented his thoughts to ILM around some of the untruths and misconceptions around leather and leather products in the current market. He urges the tanning industry to work together to fight on common ground.
Read more...
Published: 14 August, 2019
The idea of mapping out positioning in the marketplace using Perceptual Maps started about forty years ago and is a useful tool to help visualise what is occurring.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Published: 07 August, 2019
I was upset last week when I was directed to an item on the Dezeen website where the head of Helsinki Fashion Week was talking provocatively about farming leather. I promptly responded in the abyss of the “comments” section which never gets read. I suppose it relieves the upset at seeing more malevolent abuse of facts.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
Last week we saw a welcome but rather unexpected move by the China Leather Industry Association (CLIA) to stop the confusing marketing that arises from the historic usage of the meaningless term “synthetic leather”. It is something that has infuriated the industry as they travel around the globe to leather shows where leather sits alongside other materials to help buyers who want to make their international visits more efficient.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
A year or two ago I wrote here that some of the most senior leather buyers from major corporations were convinced that chrome tanned leather, despite being technically superior and environmentally quite satisfactory, would not survive the next few years.
Read more...
Dr Mike Redwood
New York began as a trading post to send hides and skins back to Europe. Soon leather was needed to supply the needs of arriving settlers, so the direction of the leather trade started to reverse and leather production became a major US industry.
Read more...
Credit: Juliana Amorim
In the Autumn of 2018 National Geographic magazine took a look at the prospects for the Amazon forest amid the political upheaval in Brazil. It did look good.
Read more...
