Leather

What it is

Leather is tanned to stop it decaying, and the tanning method decides almost everything about how it behaves. Vegetable tanning uses tannins from bark and plant matter, takes weeks, and produces a firm, dense leather that can be cut cleanly, burnished at the edge, embossed, and shaped with water and heat. It starts pale and darkens with light, oil and handling.

The alternative, chrome tanning, is faster and makes a softer, more uniform leather that stays the colour it was dyed. It has its uses; they are not the ones here.

Why it is used here

Veg-tan is chosen because it does three things this workshop wants:

• It takes an impression. The maker's seal is pressed into it with a brass embosser and stays. See The maker's seal.
• It holds a shape. Wet, formed and dried, it keeps the form — which is what a hat brim needs.
• It records use. Hands, weather and time show on the surface. A patch on a jean or a handle on a tote looks like it belongs to that garment after a year, not to the shop.

Where it shows up

Patches, handles, tabs and reinforcement — places that get touched and looked at. The Field Tote carries veg-tan handles. The Leather Tricorn is a shaped-leather project from crown to brim. The Standard Issue Jean is planned with a leather patch at the waistband.

How it wears

It darkens — sometimes a lot — and picks up marks and a soft shine where it is handled. That change is the point, and it is written up as its own page, Leather patina. Two cautions: water spots it if it dries unevenly, and too much conditioner makes it limp. Little and seldom.