A beautiful leather is above all a good leather ...

We convert to leather all the skins of the animals we eat, cattle, sheep, ... and even fish.But the livestock sector thinks in terms of meat and not skin quality.

Thus tanners must multiply tricks and finishing techniques to value a waste slaughterhouse. On the other hand, exotic leathers, mainly crocodiles and snakes which are the subject of international management of protected species with rigorous traceability (CITES) and come from breeding or hunting, escape this logic. These are noble skins, transformed manually.

The tanning industry is doing well overall and if Europe provides more than 20% of global skin production, markets are moving to Asia, India and China in the lead. America is tending to become China's supplier of "raw skins". As for France, if it weighs little more than 1% of the world market, it is on the high end that it is positioned.

It is by tanning agents that this water-soaked skin is transformed into a rot-proof leather, not very hydrated (after drying) and more mechanically resistant. It is really from this stage that the first differences of leather will appear: more or less flexible, more or less resistant ... it is after the tanning step that the defects stand out the most, the skins are then ranked by choice from 1 to 10 depending on the quality level.

The finishing is composed of several techniques that will refine the appearance and texture of the leather. It is through this step that there will be a notable distinction between good quality leather and bad leather.

For leather of beautiful appearance for high-end leather goods is used a transparent finish called "aniline". In velvet finishing, bovine leather without defects is emerised and becomes "nubuck", same operation on crusts that become "velvet crust". We also sand the underside of leather with defects, these are the "velvet leather" wrongly called "suede". Finally it is a leather that requires no finishing, "lamb", French specialty, only immersed in dyeing, an absolute beauty of great fragility ...