Leather goods from various countries have traditionally been influenced by many factors. History, industry, culture, climate and even diet.
In this post I pick out three countries, England, France and Italy and compare the differences between them.
Starting with England.
In the late 1800's to early 1900's, England and in particular the city of Walsall was a world leader in saddlery and harness making, peaking with 147 factories in 1925.
With the rise of the motor vehicle and less use of horses for travel and industry, the trade went into a steady decline.
At the same time, travel via plane, ocean liners, and trains became popular. Skilled saddlers found more job opportunities making trunks, luggage, bags and luxury items known as 'fancy leather goods' using many of the leathers and tools they were familiar with.
As a country, England consumes a lot of beef. Veal (calf) isn't popular here and this brings with it a lot of mature bovine hides.
The abundance has been fuelling English tanneries for centuries. This experience led to good quality vegetable tanned leather, the majority of it for the equestrian industry in the form of English bridle leather/harness leather.
This leather has been adapted due to the rather wet climate to be extremely water resistant with the addition of fats, greases and fish oils with centuries old traditions and techniques.
In this video by Alfred Dunhill, you can see the use of English bridle leather together with many saddlery techniques, tools and hardware.
France
France is synonymous with fine leather goods. Consumption of veal is high and this leads to tanneries with experience producing high quality calf skins.
This availability trickled down to the ateliers where the artisans gained experience working with this finer skin.
France also has a history of using fine goatskins, much of it from morocco where there was a large industry producing high quality skins. This in turn influenced the French name for leather goods 'Maroquinerie'.
In this video you can see the artisans at La Contrie Paris using fine skins to create their pieces.
And finally
Italy
Italy has had a long tradition producing some of the finest leathers in the world. Not just chrome tanned leather but also vegetable tanned leathers most notably from the Tuscany region.
Much like the french, Italians also consume a high amount of veal which then finds it's way into tanneries, then workshops, leading to another diet/product relationship.
While Italy is known for it's leather and high fashion leather goods, it's their mechanical engineering that flies below the radar.
Italy produces approximately 50% of the machinery used to produce footwear and leather goods around the world and 80% of tanning machinery globally.
This close relationship with machinery is likely one of the reasons you rarely see hand stitching in Italian leather goods like you do in France and England.
Italy in general is not historically a well known producer of leather tools like we see, or at least have seen from England, France, America and even Germany.
Here is an example of Italian craftsmanship in this apparently 'sensual' video:
I hope you enjoyed this journey around Europe.
What leather or leather goods is your country noted for and why?
I live in Serbia and sadly the saddlery as a craft is completely gone, even if we used horses for transport until not so long ago. But with the general shift to industrialization and urbanization after WW2, in no small part as a planed communist economy generally craft of any kind was discouraged and state has forced industrial manufacturing. Only in the last 15 years there is a slow return to some of the crafts as country tries to get into capitalist economy. Not a great success but that is another story...
Interesting enough there is a leather tannery in my town and yet it is impossible to buy any leather from it. They were purchased by Italians and everything they make goes to Italy, allegedly for Gucci. I admit I need to investigate a bit to see if they would sell some off pieces under the counter.
I found an old video showing the entire production process
My country of origin is Kyrgyzstan. It's in Central Asia on the Silk Road. It is the land of nomads. and until the middle of 20th century, horse was the main transport for us and we had a lot of good saddle and harness makers. It seems like we still have some good crafters :)
I would tell you more, but my poor English...(
Unfortunately, I don't know anything about history of leather industry in Canada where I live now...
My country Lebanon is famous for it's food and nightlife. Don't know how to fit leather into that thought.
Basically, leather is not really our strong point. We have 2 or 3 tanneries here and they produce mostly upholstery leather and automotive leather. All chrome tanned.
Also, what is sensual about the Mont Blanc Video. I think apart from the guy who sources the leather, all the craftsman are a bit of posers, They did not encourage me to buy a 5K mont blanc bag...
That Dunhill video though...