Features

Technical Library

Select Language
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.

Features

26 October 2020
Leather industry answers back
Free Content
A row over the treatment of leather in the Higg Materials Sustainability Index has had two potentially positive consequences.
22 October 2020
Small-batch boots
Free Content
A footwear manufacturer, a tanner and a whiskey company mixed together centuries of know-how and craftsmanship to make a special-edition work boot.
07 September 2020
Beast to Beauty: Ethical shift
Free Content
The Cambridge Satchel Company’s iconic products have become world famous in the last decade.
31 August 2020
Secondhand luxury marketplace: a perfect home for leather
Free Content
The market for secondhand luxury goods is thriving, with leather leading the way.
24 August 2020
Ethiopia’s story ‘has just begun’
Free Content
A Vivobarefoot and Pittards partnership has created jobs and opportunities in the African country. With brands looking at new sourcing destinations..
17 August 2020
Circling the wagons has to stop
Free Content
Chief sustainability officer at PrimeAsia, Fernando Bellese, accepts that leather faces “rough competition” from the makers of other materials, but says there are a number of important...
10 August 2020
Zero-waste heroes
Free Content
SICIT, a specialist producer of fertiliser and other products, has spent decades developing solutions to the age-old problem of how best to find a use for and extract value from the waste...
03 August 2020
The law is an asset
Free Content
A new law protecting leather’s identity will come into force in Italy this October. It will provide greater clarity for consumers and protect them from sellers of synthetics that seek to deceive them.
Beast to Beauty: What else but leather?
Free Content
A specialist consultancy has combined western materials, including leather from Scotland, and knowledge of Chinese culture and values to find an ideal fit ...
27 July 2020
Waste worth billions
Free Content
Statistics from France’s Conseil National Du Cuir provide a reminder of just how much value tanners and finished product manufacturers are able to add to hides.
20 July 2020
Rich heritage
Free Content
Millau’s leather and glove manufacturers are at the heart of an ongoing effort to win UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status.
13 July 2020
Time to put the by-product debate to bed
Free Content
There are ill-founded arguments that the raw material for leather is a co-product rather than a by-product of the meat and dairy industries.
06 July 2020
Sacred Cow: It’s the How
Free Content
The Sacred Cow project is soon to release a book and a movie, making the case for an ethical, regenerative food system built around well-raised cattle.
29 June 2020
The transformation continues
Free Content
The entire world is being rocked by the effects of covid-19 pandemic, but the European Commission wants to press ahead with its plans for a move to a circular economy.
08 June 2020
Beast to Beauty: Louboutin is loyal to leather
Free Content
Shoe designer Christian Louboutin has received encouragement to try out “fake” material in his collections in place of leather.
01 June 2020
Leather ‘holds so much promise’ for Niger
Free Content
The Enhanced Integrated Framework tells World Leather how it is working with the government to modernise tanneries, train leather workers and set up more advanced systems for skin collection and exports.
25 May 2020
Limited editions, unlimited creativity
Free Content
Designer Frederikke Antonie Schmidt’s decision to build a high heels label using leather offcuts from other brands has resulted in a shoe collection that is dynamic, playful and sustainable.
18 May 2020
A material for keeping
Free Content
Entrepreneur Arturas Kanapkis discovered that stylish bags made from Tuscan vegetable-tanned leather chimed perfectly with his love and respect for ageless elegance, allowing him to build up his own...
11 May 2020
What a waste
Free Content
Industry body the Leather and Hide Council of America (LHCA) has calculated that 5.5 million hides generated by the US livestock industry in 2019 failed to reach the leather value chain.
27 April 2020
Keep the wheels turning
Free Content
The director of industry body Leather UK, Dr Kerry Senior, argues here that, just as the covid-19 crisis has brought new and deserved appreciation for a number of previously unrecognised...
06 April 2020
Beast to Beauty: Deerskin suits become ‘new trademark’
Berluti’s historic love of leather is reinterpreted on the catwalk for autumn-winter 2020.
30 March 2020
Hand in glove
Free Content
Start-up brand Nordic Moose is intent on preventing raw material in Sweden and Finland from going to waste, while preserving traditional, artisan glove-making skills in Hungary.
23 March 2020
Waste squared
Free Content
Barcelona-based entrepreneur Josep Riera has no personal history in the leather industry, but he has been travelling to and doing business in India for years.
16 March 2020
Pathways for smaller companies
Free Content
An important part of the leather industry’s circular economy credentials is that, in this value chain, companies of all sizes are able to see the way forward from linear to circular production.
09 March 2020
A yearning for the real thing
Free Content
Leather has every right to claim its place in the circular economy. Makers and sellers of synthetic materials that misuse the term ‘leather’ to confuse the public and make money under false pretences present a ...
02 March 2020
Leather’s circular economy stars of the future
Free Content
A third intake of students began a new ‘Green Leather Manager’ course in the Italian region of Veneto this academic year.
Beast to Beauty: Raeburn pushes Timberland towards ‘closed loop’
Free Content
The brand’s creative director urges greater push towards ‘three pillars’ of sustainability.
24 February 2020
Companies must step up
Free Content
France’s main leather industry association, the Conseil National du Cuir, successfully organised the first Sustainable Leather Forum in Paris in the autumn.
17 February 2020
A push to prolong products’ lives
Free Content
Online marketplace Vestiaire Collective specialises in passing luxury leathergoods from one owner to the next, arguing that prolonging a product’s life is good for the planet. Leather lends itself perfectly to ...
10 February 2020
Old shoes resurrected
Free Content
The knowledge, skills and love required to repair leather shoes may be less common than they were 100 years ago, but giving footwear a new life in this way is making a comeback.
03 February 2020
Time for a different story to emerge
Free Content
With an increased focus on moving economies from a linear model to a circular one, a pioneer in terms of theory and practice argues that the leather industry has much to share with the rest of the...
27 January 2020
Circular economy horizons
Free Content
Leather meets many of the criteria that circular economy products must fulfil. Smit & Zoon’s platform leader for bio-based chemicals, Dr Yujie Ma, argues that, to make leather even more circular...
20 January 2020
An introduction to Leather and the Circular Economy
Free Content
In the 2020s and beyond, the way we make and use products will have to shift from a linear model to a circular one. Influential institutions such as the European Commission realise that it is only by...

Browse all ...