New ICT president shares her agenda
21/03/2018
In a statement to mark the start of her presidency, she said one of the biggest challenges facing the leather industry is competition from synthetic materials. She explained: “This challenge is not a new one. Alternative materials have been seeking to replace genuine leather for decades [but] genuine leather is still the most desirable material. That is why many synthetic materials seek to imitate the appearance of leather.”
She went on to say her own national association, Leather Industries of America, is preparing to launch a new campaign in defence of leather, using an old slogan, ‘Nothing Takes the Place of Leather’. “This slogan was first used by our industry in a major advertising campaign starting in 1923,” the ICT president said. “It is still a viable and meaningful slogan in this millennium. Our industry collectively needs to promote the value of real leather and to safeguard our product from the false claims of competing materials that seek to profit from the image of genuine leather. Consumers need the best information to make the right choice and false labelling deprives them of the best information.”
Ms Howlett also paid tribute to her immediate predecessor, Richard Pai, saying he had done a “wonderful job” in leading the organisation between 2016 and 2018.
She went on to praise the work of Paul Pearson as general secretary of the ICT and went as far as saying she would not have agreed to become president without confirmation from Mr Pearson that he was willing to continue in the role.
Share this story:
