Browse Features 2020 January - leatherbiz: Leading news site for

30 November 2020

Beast to Beauty: Willique blends tropical notes with high-end appeal

The accessories brand creates employment in the Turks and Caicos and sees material selection as an integral part of its appeal.

23 November 2020

By human hand

Lexus chose a leather artisan, Otis Ingrams, to launch a new film series. The short documentaries highlight parallels between the work of Lexus's own master craftspeople (takumi) and that of skilled people...

16 November 2020

Metal-free and traceable

Luxury group Kering has been running sustainability programmes since 2012. Its most recent sustainability goals set ambitious targets for its leathergoods brands and their suppliers in the tanning industry.

09 November 2020

Standards are on the way

An initiative by French standards body Afnor has led to the possibility of new ISO standards on the circular economy. An ISO technical committee is already hard at work on this.

02 November 2020

The ultimate circular raw material

Smit & Zoon has launched a new company, Nera, through which it will bring to market tanning solutions that it describes as “truly sustainable”.

26 October 2020

Leather industry answers back

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

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

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

The market for secondhand luxury goods is thriving, with leather leading the way.

24 August 2020

Ethiopia’s story ‘has just begun’

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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’

The brand’s creative director urges greater push towards ‘three pillars’ of sustainability.

24 February 2020

Companies must step up

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

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

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

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

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

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...