💼England, France and Italy compared

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?