What is leather?

My dear muses, good morning

I’m the creator of the ALIS MITA brand of customizable leather goods, and I’m delighted to welcome you to this^1st episode of “Pleine fleur”, where we’ll discover together what leather is all about.

The question I’m most often asked about Alis Mita products is: is it leather? Yes, it’s leather, but still…

We all have a vague idea of what leather is, but sometimes it’s a little hard to define.

Leather is the result of the transformation of putrescible animal skin into a stable material. This transformation process takes a long time, from a few weeks to over a year. It involves several stages, the names of which you have little interest in remembering unless you want to shine in society or refine your general knowledge.

So there must be quite a few of you in one of these two situations. Let me tell you how hides are turned into leather. First, raw hides are stored and salted with coarse salt to remove water from the tissues and prevent putrefaction. This is called salting, and lasts several days.

Then there’s river work, which involves several stages: removing the hair, cleaning the skin, rehydrating it after drying it with salt, and softening it. Why river? Because in the old days, these transformations were carried out by the rivers…

After salting and river work, we come to the famous tanning process known to all leather lovers. The hide is soaked in substances called tannins, which stabilize it and prevent it from turning moldy. Tannins can be vegetable, based on plants or bark, or mineral, most often based on chromium. In the past, oil or smoke tanning was also used, but this is no longer the case.

The last two stages are currying and finishing, during which we work on the coloring, thickness and suppleness of the leather.

So you see, it takes time and know-how to produce leather and to give a hide those mechanical, chemical and aesthetic qualities that even today remain unmatched by synthetic materials.

Leather is a material that has stood the test of time: vestiges of leather over 5,000 years old have been discovered in the Alps, Mesopotamia and Egypt, where skins were used as clothing and writing materials.

Leather is also one of nature’s most eco-responsible materials: man has chosen to ennoble a material that would otherwise be quite difficult to recycle. This natural material is thus reintroduced into the consumer circuit in a sustainable way.

Now you know a little more about this beautiful material. I hope you enjoyed this first episode; like, comment and share it with your friends.

See you soon!