Tanners raise questions about Delvaux’s ostrich claims
21/09/2015
At the time of the opening, Delvaux’s artistic director, Christina Zeller, told local media in Singapore: “We are still here for a reason: impeccable quality. We will not compromise to save money. For example, with ostrich, we are the only house that has a special technique to make sure that each bump is not destroyed when you shave the skin. It’s a house secret. If you don’t know how to treat ostrich skin, you will create holes where the bumps are, and I know certain manufacturers that actually re-glue the bumps onto the skin to patch up the holes.”
Specialist ostrich tanners have told World Leather that creative and skillful use of ostrich leather may be more widespread than Ms Zeller has suggested. “Delvaux is not unique in protecting the quill,” they said, adding that a number of producers in Europe and in Africa have become skilled at using splitting machines to skive pieces of ostrich skin to meet the needs of brands’ cut patterns.
It is also possible now to equip splitting machines with softer rollers and thereby better preserve the natural qualities of all types of raw material and it could be that Delvaux’s suppliers have applied this to ostrich. “For the rest of it, the process is fairly general practice,” our sources have said.
And with regard to the practice of re-gluing “bumps” onto ostrich skins, tanners acknowledge that this has been part of their way of processing this raw material for some time, but insist the motivation is not to “patch up holes”, as Ms Zeller has suggested, but to add extra value.
An ostrich skin has smooth areas as well as quill areas and, because they are less distinctive, the smooth areas generally hold less appeal for designers of high-end bags. Full-quill bags command a higher price than half-quill bags, which has led to tanners developing techniques for inserting quill areas onto smooth areas.
Image (courtesy Delvaux) shows the brand’s Brilliant Black Edition bag, which combines alligator, python, lizard and ostrich.
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