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Technical Library

Browse a handpicked selection of World Leather articles, thought provoking topics ranging from fast fashion to zero waste are all here. Premium + and World Leather subscribers can delve deeper, with access to the industry beating archive of over 1,400 World Leather technical papers in the archive.

Heroes amid the chaos

Haiti-based Deux Mains shows how entrepreneurial spirit and determination can combine to support a community ravaged by disaster and poverty. Founder Julie Colombino-Billingham tells World Leather... Free Content
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18 March 2026
Art in small spaces - leather, world leather Art in small spaces
Free Content
After studying medicine for years, Chukwuma Ekwerike concluded that there is great beauty in the human form. He now uses his design talent to express his love for the patterns he first saw in his anatomy...
11 March 2026
Food for thought - leather, world leather Food for thought
Free Content
A new digital platform for informing, training and supporting professional development in the circular economy is on the way. Improvements will come through better connections between leather and agri-food.
03 March 2026
The fruits of data - leather, world leather The fruits of data
Free Content
Efforts to collect supply chain and production data have begun to yield transparency, traceability and sustainability rewards for companies in the leather industry.
24 February 2026
Fair share - leather, world leather Fair share
Free Content
Leather’s circularity credentials deserve full recognition in the EU’s new Circular Economy Act. And if circularity becomes a requirement for winning public procurement contracts, rich rewards are on offer.
06 January 2026
Complex journey to biocircularity - leather, world leather Complex journey to biocircularity
Free Content
After decades of looking after Asian manufacturing for big brands, David Solk and Irmi Kreuzer ploughed their resources and experience into creating a shoe in which every element can decompose. Initially...
23 December 2025
Unwanted hides will go far - leather, world leather Unwanted hides will go far
Free Content
For ten years, worker-owned cooperative Pingree Detroit has been sourcing surplus leather and making it into handmade shoes and accessories.
16 December 2025
Handmade differences - leather, world leather Handmade differences
Free Content
A start-up Seoul-based footwear brand is attracting attention in Europe as a result of its ability to offer huge versatility while staying true to traditional, artisan skills and the use of high-quality...
03 December 2025
Credible pathways - leather, world leather Credible pathways
Non-profit organisation the Institute for Data Integrity is being launched because transparent data, and analysis of that data, are now a necessity for the global leather industry.
26 November 2025
Natural attraction - leather, world leather Natural attraction
Free Content
Leather industry representatives are working increasingly closely with their counterparts in sectors such as wool, silk, cotton and cashmere. A united voice from suppliers of different natural fibres stands a...
18 November 2025
EUDR ups and downs - leather, world leather EUDR ups and downs
Free Content
Hopes in the leather industry in September of at least a temporary reprieve on EUDR were dashed in October. The European Commission has published a document insisting that the regulation will come into...
05 November 2025
Luxury’s pivotal moment? - leather, world leather Luxury’s pivotal moment?
Free Content
As luxury sales dip, brands should find a way to monetise resale channels without impacting brand value, according to a study. A new cross-party congressional group in the US hopes to boost the sector, too.
28 October 2025
Water-positive - leather, world leather Water-positive
Free Content
Luxury group Kering has released the first details of a new water strategy.
21 October 2025
Record in the bag - leather, world leather Record in the bag
Free Content
An original prototype of the Hermès Birkin bag has become the most expensive handbag ever to sell at auction.
30 September 2025
Still no solution to plastic pollution - leather, world leather Still no solution to plastic pollution
Free Content
An intergovernmental committee has failed, once again, to agree a treaty on ending plastic pollution. A consumer backlash seems inevitable. In response, leather has a chance to become the material of choice...
23 September 2025
Brands must buy better - leather, world leather Brands must buy better
Free Content
After falls in the volume and value of leather that Italian tanners produced in 2024, the president of national industry body UNIC, Fabrizio Nuti, has offered his colleagues reasons for sticking with their...
17 September 2025
Added value - leather, world leather Added value
Free Content
An article we published five years ago put at 2000% the figure for the added value that tanners and leathergoods manufacturers can give to hides. As this follow-up article shows, if you put the material in the ...
12 August 2025
Behind the leather golf glove - leather, world leather Behind the leather golf glove
Free Content
The concept of the circular economy is gaining momentum across a range of industries, and the production of leather for golf gloves offers a clear example of how this thinking translates into practice.
05 August 2025
Brave decisions - leather, world leather Brave decisions
Free Content
It is 40 years since Catalan small-skin tanning group Curtidos Codina recognised the importance of Brazil as a source of its main raw material and set up its own full-service tannery in the South American...
29 July 2025
ECCO’s strength is also its weakness - leather, world leather ECCO’s strength is also its weakness
Free Content
The footwear and leather group is focusing on resuming operations after a fire destroyed its wet-end processing facility in the Netherlands.
22 July 2025
Data specialists step in - leather, world leather Data specialists step in
Free Content
Technology companies that have been down the traceability path before with the seafood sector have now launched an initiative for leather.
16 July 2025
Nothing to Hide: a decade of truth-telling - leather, world leather Nothing to Hide: a decade of truth-telling
Free Content
Cited by companies including Puma, which used the platform as a resource when fact-checking leather statistics, we celebrate 10 years since World Leather’s publisher launched the platform to dispel myths and...
08 July 2025
A perfect fit - leather, world leather A perfect fit
Free Content
Industry body COTANCE organised an event at EU Green Week 2025 to present to an influential audience leather’s credentials for earning recognition as the circular economy’s dream product.
24 June 2025
Fast-fashion thinking damages durability debate - leather, world leather Fast-fashion thinking damages durability debate
Free Content
A group that has led lengthy discussions on what constitutes product durability has chosen to ignore fact-based arguments that favour leather and other natural materials.
17 June 2025
SMEs weigh data burden - leather, world leather SMEs weigh data burden
Free Content
Some of the world’s most beautiful shoes are made by highly skilled artisans in small workshops.
10 June 2025
Bad for goods - leather, world leather Bad for goods
Free Content
This second article on the 2025 trade crisis focuses on finished product and shows that companies and consumers everywhere, including the US, will feel pain.
03 June 2025
Fund raises hopes as well as money - leather, world leather Fund raises hopes as well as money
Free Content
An initiative that WWF has launched aims to raise an initial $10 million to help fund deforestation-free sourcing of hides. It says this will just be the start.
28 May 2025
Liberation Day blues - leather, world leather Liberation Day blues
Free Content
April 2025 was a cruel month of tariffs, counter-measures, trade tensions and uncertainty.
13 May 2025
Change takes time - leather, world leather Change takes time
Free Content
Carlo Briccola is president of the young business leaders’ group at Italy’s main representative body for the fashion sector, Confindustria Moda Accessori.
06 May 2025
Fix up, look sharp - leather, world leather Fix up, look sharp
Free Content
29 April 2025
Skills celebration - leather, world leather Skills celebration
Free Content
Luxury automotive company Rolls-Royce Motors celebrates its successful apprenticeship programme as an essential component of efforts to build up the skilled workforce it will need in the future.
23 April 2025
A seat at the table - leather, world leather A seat at the table
Free Content
Puma has enlisted ‘youth voices’ and influencers to explore questions surrounding real leather versus its alternatives – and uses our Nothing to Hide website to inform the debate.
15 April 2025
Clean and green - leather, world leather Clean and green
Free Content
A new initiative that the European Commission calls its Clean Industrial Deal should strengthen the leather sector’s claims that it deserves to remain part of the manufacturing panorama.
09 April 2025
France’s future - leather, world leather France’s future
Free Content
The president of Alliance France Cuir confirms that changes in farming in France may have wide-ranging consequences for the whole of the leather sector there.
01 April 2025
Where things come from - leather, world leather Where things come from
Free Content
Detailed work on traceability that Tapestry has been carrying out since 2019 could help companies in different parts of the supply chain respond to regulatory requirements, including EUDR.
25 March 2025
Life and Seoul - leather, world leather Life and Seoul
Free Content
Leathergoods start-ups from Seoul caught the eye at the September edition of Mipel in Milan. Six of them travelled to Italy for the occasion, but the South Korean capital is home to thousands more.
18 March 2025
Put it down to experience - leather, world leather Put it down to experience
Free Content
According to expert analyst Claudia D’Arpizio, luxury leathergoods brands will do well to emphasise the “emotional experience” involved in owning beautiful products made from the most circular material in the...
11 March 2025
Good COP, bad COP - leather, world leather Good COP, bad COP
Free Content
COP16 and COP29 – Conference of the Parties to the United Nations conventions on biodiversity and climate change – highlighted differences of opinion on accountability and financing and were generally thought...
04 March 2025
Blame it on the leathergoods - leather, world leather Blame it on the leathergoods
Free Content
After disappointing results, London-based luxury brand Burberry has decided that the best way to turn its fortunes around is to shine far less limelight on leather.
25 February 2025
To net-zero and beyond - leather, world leather To net-zero and beyond
Free Content
The United Nations has identified forest conservation as an important component in the battle to bring carbon emissions down. Contrary to the perceptions of many, livestock farmers are convinced they can...
18 February 2025
Calf strain - leather, world leather Calf strain
Free Content
Constraints in the supply of calfskins are having an impact on the luxury leathergoods sector, according to a past-president of ICHSLTA.
11 February 2025
Higg’s leather turnaround - leather, world leather Higg’s leather turnaround
Free Content
Data provided by the Leather Working Group, Leather Naturally and Spin360 has resulted in a significant revision of figures for leather on the Materials Sustainability Index.
17 December 2024
A new chapter - leather, world leather A new chapter
Free Content
The Pakistan Tanners’ Association believes a new partnership with the China Leather Industry Association can help it increase exports by almost six times between now and 2030.
10 December 2024
The ultimate green machine - leather, world leather The ultimate green machine
Free Content
Michael Jordan has been named as the owner of the first one-off coach-built Battista from Automobili Pininfarina – but does he know he is sitting on Olivenleder?
03 December 2024
Added time, but EUDR ordeal still looms - leather, world leather Added time, but EUDR ordeal still looms
Free Content
Important recent developments make it imperative for us to return to the subject of EUDR.
26 November 2024
A careful path forward - leather, world leather A careful path forward
Free Content
New York-based accessories and footwear group Tapestry has an extensive programme in place to build a business case for circularity while celebrating and enhancing the sustainability of leather.

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