A taste of summer at Shoes & Leather
06/05/2008
Stahl’s leather finish collection to be presented at the Shoes & Leather exhibition in Guangzhou will preview the company’s forecasts for spring and summer 2009.
The finishes will be shown on leather for the garment, shoe, leathergoods and upholstery segments of the market. These will be prepared mainly on wet blue supplied by tanners throughout Asia and subsequently retanned and further processed in Stahl’s application laboratories in Shanghai and Singapore by their Chinese and Australasian technical teams.
The company believes it new slogan—‘Where technology becomes fashion’—aptly describes using products to simplify the creation of effects and surfaces, enabling tanners to manage and achieve smaller product inventories by reducing the number of products and finish applications they use.
Throughout the display the colours used will be based on those in Stahl’s colour forecast for the season. In addition, a special range of white leather finishes will reflect the new whites expected to be in vogue at this time next year, and using the latest low volatile organic compound (VOC) technology to produce high performance leathers for athletic applications.
The display will also emphasise the importance of black by showing new ways of finishing black leathers to enhance upgrading properties without losing the natural characteristics of the leather.
These colours will be shown on an extensive range of leather effects including oils and waxes, metallic, new surface cracks and brush-off. A new super soft patent will be shown on specially prepared crust alongside Box leathers having rubbery surface handles which are showing strong signs of returning to popularity, Stahl believes.
Many of the finishes will have been prepared using new products manufactured in the new facilities at Stahl Coatings & Fine Chemicals (Suzhou) Co Ltd. Pigments, auxiliaries, resins, compact finishes and top coats from this source will be readily identified by the use of the number 77 in the product sales codes.
To help visitors identify and focus on the finishes of particular interest to them, the leathers will be divided into the same six themes that appear in the company’s colour forecast.
High fashion, exotic effects will be found in the ‘Frou Frou’ title. Oily and waxy finishes that hide grain defects and small area of surface damage will be gathered under ‘Asian Cowboy’, while natural upgraded leathers are grouped under ‘Saba’. ‘Classic’ includes medium- and high-gloss polished and imitation glazed effects.
High performance white low VOC finishes and the use of foils will be found under ‘Technical Sports’ and, finally, ‘Modern’ refers to upgrading techniques using embossing and novel techniques using hand applied applications.
Among the senior Stahl staff present at the show will be Huub van Beijeren (chief executive), Hans Boots (global leather finish director), Andrew Fairhead (China business director) and Jean Heyer (Australia business director).
Technicians from the company’s Chinese and Australasian teams will also be present to discuss technical aspects of the finishes and the products used to create them.
The exhibition takes place from May 28–31.
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