The highly anticipated Lineapelle fair in Milan came to an end on February 13. As always, the expectations of exhibitors and visitors are as diverse as the impressions most visitors take away from the fair. Some are disappointed, others are pleased.

The numbers of exhibitors and visitors this February were lower than the average results of recent years. Naturally, the Olympic Games had an impact on exhibitor and visitor attendance. Extremely high hotel prices and also fear that travel to and from the event, as well as the visit itself, might not run entirely smoothly, may have played their part. For the record, the organisation was excellent and everything did run smoothly.

As far as visitors from China are concerned, the scheduling directly ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays naturally also played a significant role. Likewise, the visitor count will have been affected by different days for the Micam and Mipel fairs that often take place in parallel with Lineapelle (these take place next week). In conversations, one also hears more frequently that budgets for travel, sampling, product development now require tighter approvals than in the past. Many companies are focusing on a few “must-attend” dates and cutting secondary events more consistently. 

Anyone who simply counts heads and looks at how crowded the aisles are might once again be disappointed. But the question remains whether “many” ultimately also means “successful”. In any case, we left Milan with the impression that, in this instance too, less can sometimes be more. Especially on the first day, when the aisles and booths appeared relatively empty, the mood among many exhibitors was by no means depressed. Quite the opposite: many reported that although there was little activity at their stands, visitors were nevertheless of high quality. In plain terms, that usually means the visitors were either existing customers with a clear agenda, or potential new customers who wanted to discuss business opportunities in a serious manner.

On the second day, visitor frequency increased noticeably. However, even then, it was really only a time window of roughly between 11:00 to 15:00 during which significantly more people appeared and the usual fair meet-ups took place that do not happen at an exhibitor’s stand. As always, this can be filed under “gossip and chatter,” without implying that this is not also an important part of a fair. As for the third day, there is usually not much more to say, especially as it fell on a Friday this time, and visitors and exhibitors generally just want to get home as quickly as possible.

So what can one take away from the fair in terms of content? Here too, opinions will certainly differ. But that is also because not everyone’s offering reflects the market situation in the same way. Some things simply work better and attract more attention, others less so. That is true in good times as well as in bad.

If one tries to bring some order into it, it stands out that apparel leather received a great deal of attention. Even here, however, it is more about parts and less about the whole. Suede and nubuck, highly elegant nappa leathers, lightweight double-face types, and leathers with a striking and well-executed vintage-look attracted the attention of many visitors interested in this segment. Apparel thus aligns with the broader trend toward nubuck and suede leathers that has already been visible in the footwear segment over the past seasons. Whether one should be particularly happy about that is, nevertheless, another question.

Overall, the entire sector of ovine skins was characterised by solid interest. What will be exciting now is the next question: standard raw material prices are not only at historic lows, but supply is also significantly reduced because, in many regions of the world, it has no longer been economical to obtain the raw material and prepare it for the leather industry. Another influence comes from very strong demand for wool and the significantly higher prices that have accompanied it. In particular, demand from China has increased in recent months; however, it was clearly noticeable that this was less about leather and more about gaining wool. Should an improved demand for the leather portion now develop as well, that would be the long-awaited good news for this sector.

For quite some time now it has been striking that the price spread between different types is extremely wide, possibly even too wide. In this context, the question of “dual-use” positioning is also raised more frequently: if wool carries the value, leather can be positioned more strongly again as a high-quality co-product, though only if the supply-chain story (origin, husbandry, processing) can be told consistently.

In addition, there was a great deal of interest in more exotic leather types. This also applies to reptile skins, and almost all types of deerskin. At the same time, it is increasingly evident that exotic articles are becoming “audit-driven”: without robust documentation (legality, origin, CITES/equivalent, chain of custody), many brands simply will not put them into collections regardless of how good the article looks.

In many past editions we have repeatedly pointed to the fundamentally positive development in so-called niches. Something special, in any form, has been successful for quite some time, and this trend was not only confirmed in Milan, we would even say it has strengthened and accelerated. In the apparel sector we have seen this more often recently; unfortunately, however, it often failed to make the jump into mass production and into collections. Instead, many brands preferred to focus on plastic-based imitations. This time it feels somewhat different, as one increasingly gains the impression that the original is regaining importance in apparel as well.

In the footwear and leathergoods segment, impressions were largely similar. Naturally, volumes are much larger here, and the question of the material’s success or failure has far greater significance for the industry as a whole. Nevertheless, it could also be observed here that ‘the special’ is gaining importance and demand is rising. The nubuck and suede trend continues here as well, and for nappa in leathergoods, calf remains the defining factor.

In the end, what concerns us is a different trend, and with it, a certain worry. Particularly in bovine leather, demand is becoming increasingly segmented by leather types and specs, and one has the impression that this trend is intensifying further. What do we mean by that?

Meat production and nature simply deliver an extremely broad spectrum of raw material. Climate, breed, husbandry conditions, different forms of cattle fattening, meat qualities, and so on determine what kind of raw material from the bovine category comes to market. From very small calfskins to extremely heavy hides, from stable feeding to pasture, from dairy cattle to beef cattle, the spectrum is extremely wide and the properties accordingly different. None of this is new.

Even though the fair in Milan is primarily focused on apparel, footwear, and leathergoods leathers, other sectors are represented as well. They complete the overall picture and, in terms of raw material utilisation, play no less significant a role.

What we have been observing for some time, though its impact had not been so totally  clear to us until now, is the extreme concentration of leather manufacturers on tightly predefined raw material types with correspondingly predefined specifications. That may make sense for industrial manufacturing, but it makes far less sense for the generation and utilisation of raw material. Of course, tanners have always specialised in certain raw materials; better is the enemy of good, and there are characteristics that are advantageous, or even necessary, for producing certain leathers. But there has always also been the know-how of tanners, and their creativity and flexibility allowed a certain mobility in the raw material markets.

Often, processors and brands are now specifying raw material requirements without any special knowledge or competence in this domain. Their core competence may be to think about the visual appearance and haptics of articles, but beyond that, their demands regarding raw material are entirely misaligned with necessities and possibilities.

Two highly significant consequences have resulted from this. In the context of weak demand and purchasing power of leather buyers in recent years, the leather industry has not only restricted itself in creativity and selection of raw material, but also in the discussion of how one might develop alternatives. Leather buyers cherry-pick and have forgotten that you have somehow to make use of all the material. Examples would include velour splits or the entire sector of European automotive leather, but there would be many more. This situation increasingly constrains leather manufacturers, and especially European ones. Creative, competent companies are suffering unnecessarily.

The situation becomes particularly absurd when one sees buyers and designers at the stands of smaller manufacturers, where, suddenly freed from all constraints, they enthusiastically embrace “what is possible,” celebrate it, and then immediately forget it again one stand further down the aisle when dealing with their main suppliers. One approach that is being discussed in isolated cases is a “specification pyramid”: this will involve a few hard, must-have criteria (regarding traceability, for example) plus flexible nice-to-have criteria that deliberately allow variance (grain pattern, hand-feel, slight colour nuances). In other words, specifications that do not systematically “design out” material properties.

Another weighty topic in discussions at Lineapelle was the question of how the conversation about leather’s properties can be brought back to the forefront. This ties directly into the previous discussion. If, in production, the material must be fully standardised in appearance and touch, that cannot happen without sacrificing properties. It is actually quite simple: the further the dial is turned toward uniformity, the more leather’s inherent properties will be compromised. Despite a general oversupply of raw material, bottlenecks suddenly emerge with specific types of hide, bottlenecks that are not really necessary. The more the dial were turned toward flexibility and away from uniformity, the more the material’s properties would move to the forefront, and the more the competence of the leather industry could be used to make more good, high-performing material available to the market again.

Of course, we are not under the illusion at the moment that this is a realistic scenario for the near future. That changes nothing about the fact that leather manufacturers must continue to free themselves from constraints, place their competence front and centre, and move from defence back to offence. Only then will it presumably be possible to stimulate demand for leather as a material again, actually utilise the available raw material, and fill under-utilised capacities more effectively. From a brand perspective, this could also mean selling leather more strongly through “material literacy”: patina, repairability, breathability, longevity, and haptics as a deliberate bundle of differentiation, rather than treating leather merely as a “surface” that is ultimately pushed toward uniformity anyway.

Over the next two weeks, the markets will presumably not change all that much. In Asia, the region is now entering the pause and welcoming Lunar New Year. In Europe, many areas will initially have to focus on whether hopes of an improvement in order intake in the second half of 2026 and in 2027 are truly justified. Added to that is the discussion of which raw material type will be available in what quantities in Europe in the coming months. Global slaughter patterns are shifting; supply of the raw material that is needed and the raw material that is actually available is currently not balanced and ranges from far oversupplied to insufficiently available. That means there will be no shortage of interesting and relevant topics along the leather pipeline in the near future either.

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